


Life Was a Song, You Came Along

by rainbowninja167



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music Store, Angst with a Happy Ending, I've tried to earn the miscommunication angst, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, and flagrant abuses of 1D's discography, brief description of stage fright bordering on a panic attack, but i know it bothers some people, on that note:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-10 20:35:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10446873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowninja167/pseuds/rainbowninja167
Summary: It's embarrassing how long it takes Louis to recognize his own song. Niall had sung it as a bright, hopeful love song, and that’s honestly how Louis had always assumed it should sound. But this new voice, slow and rough, stripped of any backing instrument, has infused the lyrics with just the tumultuous mix of fear and defiance that Louis can remember so clearly from the night he wrote them.It’s not a comfortable thing, to feel like someone is singing all your secrets back to you.Louis is a songwriter trapped in a lie that could ruin his best friend's career. Harry owns a record store, distrusts everyone in the music industry on principle, butlovesNiall Horan's newest album. A modern retelling ofSingin' in the Rain.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the first fic I started in the 1d fandom, over a year ago, during the carefree days of OTRA. I've put it aside for months, rewritten scenes into oblivion, and generally despaired of ever finishing, but here it is at last!
> 
> Thanks to [Jo and Bert](http://iampackratseemehoard.tumblr.com/) for being amazing betas and all-round wonderful human beings, not to mention laughing at all the jokes (really, what more could you ask in a beta???).
> 
> The title comes from the song "You Were Meant for Me," sung by Gene Kelly in _Singin' in the Rain_. Which happens to be my favorite movie of all time. So naturally, I had to make it about Larry...
> 
> Oh, one last note: for the purposes of this fic, Liam's and Louis' music corresponds roughly to the songs on _Up All Night_ and _Take Me Home_. Niall's album is made up of songs from _Midnight Memories_ and _Four_ , and Harry's album at the end has some stuff from _Four_ and some stuff from _Made in the AM_. Obviously I've fudged the writing credits in a lot of cases, although I've tried to keep things fairly believable.
> 
> Also, be warned, characters in this fic share some negative opinions about certain 1D songs. Their opinions aren't the same as my own, so please don't hate me for all the mean stuff Fictional!Louis says -- chances are, I love that song too!
> 
> Let me know what you think, here or on [tumblr](http://rainbowninja.tumblr.com/)!

 

Later, whenever Louis tells the story, he starts with _Pitchfork_. When questioned, he always argues that the day _Pitchfork_ reviewed Niall’s album was the day things really started going to shit.

It’s not quite true, of course. The seeds of destruction had actually been sown months ago by Simon Cowell, head of one of the largest record labels in Britain and also, incidentally, Louis’ boss. Simon was the one who had pushed for Niall to be branded as a singer-songwriter: “you know, speaking from the heart. Just you and your guitar on stage, like all that Ed Sheeran bullshit? It’ll be huge.” Simon was also the one who told Niall to pass Louis’ music off as his own, using words like “gift” and “happy compromise.” And then, when they’d both initially refused, using words like “legal battle” and “PR disaster” instead.

Louis knows he should regret the album that resulted. Although Louis and Liam have a bit of a reputation in the industry as hit-makers, they mostly write pop songs for boy bands and X Factor winners, and Louis had never intended for the songs in his personal notebooks to see the light of day. He can’t bring himself to regret that they have. Which is why Louis can’t blame Niall, or the album, or even Simon (mostly). And every time Louis suggests blaming himself, Liam launches into an earnest monologue that Louis doesn't have the heart to forestall.

Instead, Louis decides to blame _Pitchfork_. He thinks _Pitchfork_ exemplifies the type of pretentious, name-dropping, overly metaphorical nonsense that makes for the worst kind of music reviewing these days.

So, you know, they probably had it coming.

But they also give Niall’s album a 7.8 and say, “The brittle, yearning quality of the lyrics is rounded out by Horan’s optimistic vocals, like Arcade Fire with a twist.”

“What the fuck does that even mean,” Louis giggles during their slightly drunken read-aloud in his flat. He follows that up with his own version of a “twist,” wiggling his bum elaborately until Niall is howling with laughter and Liam is reaching out to steady him. Louis takes the opportunity to steal Liam’s drink while he’s distracted.

“To fucking _Pitchfork_ ,” he says, saluting them both with Liam’s drink and then downing it in one long pull, all ignoring Liam’s mild sounds of protest. Niall meanwhile is finishing the review over Louis’ shoulder.

“‘It’s rare that a singer-songwriter combines easy popularity with such depth of lyrical feeling, but Niall Horan really is the complete package.’ What bullshit.”

“It’s a good review,” Liam says, less drunk than either Louis or Niall, and frowning slightly as he gets himself another beer to replace the one Louis had taken.

“Yeah, but it’s not reviewing me, is it?” Niall retorts, concentrating very hard on his words. “It’s reviewing...fuckin’...fuckin’...help me out here, Lou?”

“Fuckin’ Simon Cowell!” Louis shouts gleefully, snatching Liam’s drink up before Liam has a chance to take a sip. Liam sighs heavily and stands up again.

“Yes! It’s reviewing _fucking_ Simon Cowell!” Niall beams at Louis like he’s the most brilliant human on the planet. “Also _you_ , Lou. Haha, that rhymes.”

Louis leaves Niall happily singing “you Lou” to himself, and trots into the kitchen in search of Liam.

“You’re not taking this one,” Liam warns, brandishing his just-completed cocktail like a sword. And perhaps it’s all those stolen drinks hitting Louis at once, but he looks at Liam -- who’s wearing that half-exasperated, half-fond expression that he reserves particularly for Louis -- and mumbles “ _Pitchfork_ reviewed _me_ ” before collapsing against a cabinet.

Liam exhales sharply. He lowers himself more slowly to the floor and lets Louis tangle their legs together.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, and pulls Louis’ head down to rest against his shoulder. It’s warm and solid, and just for a moment, Louis feels like the world might stop spinning.

Niall comes in search of them a moment later, to flop dramatically over both their laps.

“Bullshit,” Niall repeats, poking sharp fingers into Louis’ side for emphasis.

Louis steals Liam’s drink again.

 

***

 

Harry’s favorite night of the week is Sunday. He knows this is an unpopular choice. Zayn regularly spends Sunday nights draping himself over their shared furniture like it’s some sort of fainting couch, saying passive-aggressive things about his work-life balance and Harry’s obligations to his employees.

 “ _I’m_ the one who opens the store on Monday mornings. Stop complaining,” Harry regularly tells him in return, but Zayn only glares and mutters harder.

Harry reckons there is something a bit melancholy about Sunday’s sense of time passing, but he’s never minded that. It’s nice, he thinks sometimes, to have a day that’s all about anticipating new beginnings. It’s the reason he’s scheduled Sunday night as the night he remakes the Songbird’s store playlist.

The playlist had started as an idea to connect with the customers, when he’d first taken over the struggling record store from its previous owners, and he was still trying to figure out how to run an actual business. Harry’s always had what his mum indulgently calls a “musical mind,” which, at Age Eight, had meant reenacting Westlife music videos with his Action Man toys. As an adult, it means that his brain works more along the lines of a _Glee_ episode: lots of inappropriately timed songs and emotional medleys. To quiet some of the noise, he’d started making playlists for the store, imagining he was sharing pieces of himself with each customer who walked through the door.

Somewhat to Harry’s shock, the weekly playlist has turned into a quiet phenomenon, his own weird brain much more interesting to strangers than Harry would ever have anticipated. He had to expand the listening area in the shop -- mostly with unbalanced tables and dubious armchairs that Zayn found on Craigslist -- because so many customers returned weekly, like hipster pilgrims, to hear Harry’s latest obsessions. Harry himself never examines his own choices particularly closely, working mostly through a combination of inspiration and instinct, a little afraid to jinx whatever arcane musical magic flows through him.

“It’s like a Ouija board,” he’d once explained earnestly to Zayn while slightly (read: a lot) tipsy. “Or meditating.”

“Ugh, you’re so pretentious,” Zayn had snorted, flicking Harry’s favorite sunglasses off his head.

“ _Hey_ ,” Harry had contented himself with whining, as he scrunched up his nose and bent to retrieve the sunglasses. “My pretentious playlists keep you employed, so what does that make you?”

“Desperate?”

Which, fair enough.

Eventually people started bringing newly released music to him, or asking for the names of artists he’d featured, or handing him demo tapes with unconcealed hope in their breathless explanations. And then Harry'd started attending to some of the people who sit in his squashy armchairs with intent frowns, or amble up to ask pointed questions about the shop: they’re names he’d previously only encountered in trade publications and CD liner notes.

While Harry can chat easily with any customer who enters the Songbird, he knows better than to get too caught up in the music industry’s orbit. He’s not sure any of his industry friends truly knows the extent of the vetting process that Harry puts them through, before he’s willing to pass along the slightest sliver of information about new artists. But they do know how seriously Harry takes the fit between artist and label -- more seriously than any of the musicians themselves, who are often too eager to be signed by _someone, anyone_ to read the fine print that’s attached -- and how secretive Harry can be about his own involvement in the process.

The reason for Harry’s infamous paranoia is his best friend, currently sprawled on the floor of their shared flat wearing a pair of enormous headphones and staring dreamily at the ceiling.

Harry actually remembers watching the season of X Factor the year Zayn Malik won. He’d been so jealous, and so furious at his mum when she’d told him he was too young to audition. It just makes him terrifically sad, now, to think of Zayn’s bright, beaming face in the finale, a teenager who thought all his dreams were coming true. He’d come into the Songbird years later, looking for a job and massively in debt to Syco for a record that had been sabotaged from the start. Despite his somewhat startling success in the X Factor voting, Syco had deemed him too Muslim for English girls, too Bradford for anyone else, and too young to know better.

Harry never wants what happened to Zayn to happen to another musician, not if Harry can help it.

Zayn sighs on the ground next to him as though he’s sensed the dark direction that Harry’s thoughts have taken. He pulls off his headphones and ambles over to where Harry is seated at the table with his laptop.

“How’s the ghost-whispering going?” Zayn asks, hooking his chin over Harry’s shoulder and gesturing at the most recent playlist. He’s never let Harry live that Ouija comment down.

“Boo-tifully,” Harry tells him, and then cackles at his own joke.

“For the love of God,” Zayn mumbles. Harry takes a few seconds to pout before turning back to his laptop.

“There was some good stuff this week,” he notes. “Was thinking of passing along the demo from that new band, Wind Power? Alan Carson was asking around about new talent for his label.”

“Yeah, he was in last Tuesday. They’d do well with him,” Zayn says slowly, frowning at Harry’s laptop like his mind is elsewhere.

“Hey, Haz?” he asks abruptly.

“Hmm?”

“Why don’t you ever put any of your own stuff on the playlist?”

Harry turns his head to blink at Zayn, frowning. “You know why. It’s for showcasing new talent. I don’t need to do that.”

“Why not?” Zayn pushes. “You’re new. And you’re talented.”

“Is this because I showed you those covers I’d done?” Harry asks, ignoring Zayn’s actual question, still a bit puzzled at the path this conversation has taken. “You know they were just for fun. Like, I haven’t even put them on YouTube. Only you and Gemma have copies.”

“Look, Harry...” Zayn says. “If you ever wanted-- I mean--” He stops, frustrated, and pokes the dimple in Harry’s cheek while he thinks through his next words. “Just because I had a shit experience in the business doesn’t mean you would. Like, I was young and stupid -- didn’t realize the kind of contract I was signing. That wouldn’t necessarily happen to you.”

“You were seventeen, of course you didn’t realize,” Harry retorts gently.

“Then again, you’re _still_ pretty stupid, so who knows,” Zayn teases, kicking at Harry’s foot with his trainers. Harry’s grateful that Zayn drops the subject after that.

 

***

 

Louis always cares about the music that he and Liam make, but he knows perfectly well that they both think of it primarily as a job. There’s artistry in knowing how to propel a band to success -- how to make an album that feels consistent and tightly produced, with just the right kind of singles to stand out on the radio. But it’s a different kind of artistry than what he writes in his private notebook. That always felt more hopeful to Louis. Like, even if he didn’t always understand what was happening in his own head, maybe if he put it on the page in just the right way, someone else _would_.

It’s possible now. All those notebook-songs have been released into the world, thanks to Simon. And when Niall first started recording the album, Louis genuinely thought that might be enough. But when the positive reviews started rolling in, Louis had to acknowledge that something was missing. That it doesn’t actually matter what these reviewers understand, because it won’t ever be _him_.

_Pitchfork_ is one of the last reviews, but it might be the first time in his life that Louis honestly wants to see his own name in print.

And that’s when things start going to shit.

Suddenly, everything he and Liam write is garbage. Louis almost can’t bear to come into work every day, just to stare at their crumpled pile of notes and hear Liam say reluctantly, “well maybe if we --” only to make a change that destroys the whole verse. Simon clearly thinks Louis is engaging in some sort of deliberate, passive-aggressive work slowdown. And although Louis agrees that yes, he _would_ do something like that, he also doesn’t know how to explain to Simon that he’s just lost his inspiration. Louis is pretty sure Simon doesn’t believe in things like “inspiration.”

Finally, in desperation, he asks Liam what he does when he gets writer’s block. And to his great surprise, Liam actually has an answer.

They’re both in their shared Syco office, squeezed in as usual amidst the overflowing desk, battered keyboard, and a violently orange sofa that Liam pretends he hates. The office itself gives the impression of one desperate man’s battle against encroaching chaos, with towers of papers teetering on the desk, only kept from falling off the side by a row of pen holders blocking the edge like tiny, color-coded levees. There is a neat calendar taped to the wall and marked up with post-its, while on the floor are strewn, bafflingly, exactly three Vans (even more bafflingly, each of the three is a different color).

It’s total disorganization that is nevertheless highly choreographed, a system the Louis and Liam perfected in their years of living together at uni, when each sliver of space in their shared flat was as bitterly disputed as territory on the Western Front.

Louis is currently sitting on the horrifying sofa, entangled in a Manchester United fleece blanket and piles of balled-up paper, while Liam is at the keyboard with a thoughtful look on his face, repeating the same four bars over and over again until Louis thinks he’ll go mad with it.

That’s when he asks -- half because he’s genuinely curious and half as a distraction -- if Liam ever gets writer’s block.

“Of course,” Liam says, hands pausing over the keys while he gives Louis a crinkle-eyed smile. “Reckon everyone does, at some point. But there’s this place in Soho. A record store, actually, called The Songbird. And, uh...” Liam pauses, glances at Louis hesitantly, takes in his mountain of scattered notes, and gets this weirdly intense tone to his voice, like he’s telling a secret:

“Honestly, Lou, someone in that place has magic powers. When something’s playing in there, means it’s the real deal. The number of artists I’ve heard playing open mic nights there, and then suddenly they’re making it big the next day? It’s insane.”

“So the owner is connected to someone in the business,” Louis says dismissively, doodling in the margins of the ballad he’s trying to write, a little disappointed that Liam doesn’t have some magic bullet to offer him. The song rhymes “breaking” with “taken” and Louis has a sudden savage urge to burn it.

But Liam is shaking his head.

“No, it’s more than that, it’s just...they have an ear,” he finishes simply. “Look, you wanted to know what I do? That’s it. Just browse, or listen or whatever. Like, when I’ve stopped caring about music, or I’ve forgotten what it feels like to write something I’m proud of. I dunno why, but it reminds me why we’re doing any of this.”

_Forgotten what it feels like to write something I’m proud of_. Louis remembers the words as he stands outside the record store that evening, feeling a bit foolish about his hesitance to go in. _Sounds about right_.

When Louis pushes open the door, he doesn’t immediately experience the soothing, musical Nirvana that Liam had promised. It’s a bit like every other independent record store he’s been in, honestly. Rows of barely-organized music? Check. Spare inventory in piles? Check. Ragged flyers advertising bands that need drummers, or drummers that need a band? All check. The look of a business barely staying afloat in the age of the digital download? Definite check.

He’s flipping idly through some records, resolving to give it five minutes before heading over to Liam’s flat to punch him, when “Strong” comes on the speakers.

It’s a cover, and it's embarrassing how long it takes Louis to recognize his own song. Niall had sung it as a bright, hopeful love song, and that’s honestly how Louis had always assumed it should sound. But this new voice, slow and rough, stripped of any backing instrument, has infused the lyrics with just the tumultuous mix of fear and defiance that Louis can remember so clearly from the night he wrote them. He’d decided to come out to his family the next day, and he’d sat at the table in the tiny student flat he’d shared with Liam, feverishly writing page after page of lyrics to keep his hands from shaking.

It’s not a comfortable thing, to feel like someone is singing all your secrets back to you.

Louis stands stock still in the center of a Blues aisle, overwhelmed and reluctant to miss a single note, until the song is done. The urge to hear it again is almost a physical craving, and that feeling is what propels him unthinkingly towards the cashier counter.

“That song that just played,” he blurts out, shocked by the sound of his own breathless voice. “Who was it?”

“‘S from Niall Horan’s new album,” the clerk answers lazily. Something about his voice stops Louis up short, makes him look properly. The clerk is quite fit, with dark curls springing around his face, sharp green eyes, and a hint of an amused quirk to his full lips. He’s sprawled out behind the counter, a nametag that says “Harry” pinned to his mostly unbuttoned patterned shirt, and Louis’ eyes snag on the curve of his collarbone, on the hint of black ink that curls out from behind the fabric. Louis has a sudden urge to pull the shirt down fully from his shoulders and run his fingertips over every line of every tattoo, just to find out what they are. But the clerk is raising his eyebrows at him now, and there was some reason...

“No,” Louis says impatiently. “I know where it’s from. Who was singing it? Just then?”

Some expression flashes through the clerk’s -- Harry’s -- eyes then, too quick for Louis to properly identify, and then he’s shrugging easily. Louis can’t help but notice the way his shirt pulls across his shoulders when he does it.

“Sorry, dunno. We get demos sometimes, to play in the shop. If they sound good, I load them up on a playlist, but I’m afraid I’m rubbish at keeping track of the original files.” His smile is easy and a little hapless, inviting Louis to share it. But Louis feels like something is cracking inside his chest, some hope that he hadn’t even known about. And it’s that feeling that makes him say, sharper than he intended: “Well that’s a bit irresponsible, isn’t it?”

Harry’s mouth pops open with surprise, but Louis rushes on, unable to stop despite the more lucid parts of his brain that are flashing warning lights. “People depend on you! When they hand you music like that, they expect you to care--”

Harry interrupts suddenly, his eyes narrowing even as his voice remains slow and calm.

“Maybe you’re forgetting that I work in music too, so I know who you are. People _depend_ on me? To what, turn them over to a label like Syco? I care enough to save them from _that_.”

Louis is surprised to realize that Harry seems properly angry. His face is flushing a bit, mouth turning down, and Louis feels a bit like he’s just kicked a puppy. He wants to go back to the light, teasing tone of before, but instead he finds himself stumbling over his words.

“Look, uh, I’m sorry, I just...it was an amazing track...”

“Yeah, well, Niall Horan’s a great songwriter, makes it easy, doesn’t he?” Harry shoots back.

“Oh. You think so?” Louis asks, breathless and annoyed at the small burst of pleasure that spreads through his chest at the unwitting compliment. _Stop being so needy_ , Louis orders himself.  _The song's not really yours._

“‘Course,” Harry answers, clearly taken aback by Louis’ abrupt change in tone. “He gets it, y’know?” His voice stays at the same steady, drawling pace, but his lips are turning up into a hint of a warm, private smile. “How scary and beautiful love can be. He’s willing to look right at it, and doesn’t try to, like, define it or deflect onto something easier. Sometimes what’s on the radio can feel so...soulless, you know? ‘If only you saw what I could see, you’ll understand why I love you so desperately.’ Easy rhymes and all that--”

It’s clear that Harry had been launching into a favorite topic, and had therefore picked the first Top 40 lyrics that popped into his head. So Louis watches, with a sort of detached fascination, as Harry’s eager smile slides off his face, hit with the realization that he’d just quoted one of Louis’ own songs back to him.

Of course Hipster Harry hates Louis’ _actual_ music. The music he puts his name on.

The worst part is, he’s probably right. Isn’t that why Louis came into this stupid shop in the first place? To find some reason to keep writing catchy hooks and inane lyrics? Liam’d said the people in this shop had an ear for the “real thing,” but that’s exactly what Louis needs to let go of.

Harry is watching him anxiously, mouth turned down again, and Louis honestly feels like a complete idiot. What was he expecting would change, if he found the guy who was singing his cover? Syco would still be Syco, focused on music that wins VMAs. Niall would still be Niall Horan, singer-songwriter, beloved by vinyl collectors everywhere. And he’d still be Louis Tomlinson, _soulless_.

“Maybe you’re right about the radio, mate,” Louis says finally. He tries to smile, to reassure Harry that he’s not taking it personally, but Harry’s frown only deepens. “Anyway, it was a brilliant cover, and if you ever find the artist it came from, just...let me know, alright?”

“Alright,” Harry says slowly, but Louis can tell somehow that it’s only a peace offering, and that Harry has absolutely no intention of doing any such thing. So Louis gives him a bit of a sarcastic finger wave before he leaves. He doesn’t think he’ll be back.

 

***

 

Harry frowns at the shop door that Louis Tomlinson has just disappeared through. He’s lost enough in thought that he doesn’t notice Zayn coming up behind him and draping himself over the back of Harry’s chair, until Zayn asks: “Well?”

He manages to infuse that one word with so much smugness that Harry can’t help but smile.

“You’re an arse,” he answers, spinning his chair around so quickly that Zayn tumbles against his shoulder with an unattractive squawk.

“ _That’s_ for playing my cover in front of a Syco producer,” Harry tells him, fixing Zayn with as stern a glare as he can manage. Zayn grins back at him, unrepentant.

“Worth it to see your face. And Louis Tomlinson is just ‘a Syco producer,’ now, is he? Didn’t you sleep with his red carpet photos under your pillow for an entire year?”

“Shut up,” Harry mumbles, shoving Zayn off him and onto the floor. “I did not.”

While Harry had seen photos of Louis with his arm around Liam Payne’s shoulders at some award show or another, all he’d _actually_ done was remark idly that Louis Tomlinson was quite pretty for evil incarnate. Trust Zayn to never let that go.

In person, standing in his shop, Louis had looked...softer than his photos, Harry supposes. His edges had been blurred by the shapeless gray jumper that had hung down past his wrists, and Harry’d found himself watching the way Louis ambled through the shop like he had trouble keeping still, his fingers tapping on album covers, worrying at the frayed edges of his jumper sleeves, tugging at his collar. Harry had a sudden urge to gather him up against his chest and trap Louis’ hands between them until he relaxed.

Until Louis had turned to walk down another aisle, and then all Harry’d wanted to do was stare. Because _of course_ Louis Tomlinson has a spectacular arse. Of course.

“Quite pretty for evil incarnate,” Harry mumbles, remembers that Zayn is still looking at him, and flushes.

“Well?” Zayn repeats. “What happened?”

Harry shrugs and grimaces. He can’t quite parse Louis’ reaction to the cover. He’d had a dreadful, blank look on his face as he listened to it, but before Harry had time to work out what it meant, Louis had appeared right in front of him. Louis' attention had been disconcerting somehow, sharp enough to remind Harry that the man was from Syco. And that therefore, Harry doesn’t give a shit what he likes or doesn’t like.

But Harry can still see the odd, unnatural twist to Louis’ mouth before he left, the way he’d shrunk even further into his giant jumper and used a voice that Harry thinks was intended to be joking but only came out tired.

It was...odd. Louis Tomlinson is odd. Not what he expected.

Zayn becomes impatient with watching Harry ruminate, and prompts him with a sharp: “What did he say about your song, then?”

“Wanted to know who sang it. I said I didn’t know,” Harry answers absently.

“What the fuck, Harry?” The anger in Zayn’s voice startles Harry from his _Louis Tomlinson: Greatest Hits_ reverie, and he looks up to see Zayn staring down at him from the counter like he could strangle him. “That meant he liked it, you twit. Why didn’t you tell him it was you?”

Harry blinks at Zayn.

“Because...” he says, and he can’t help but think that Zayn has suffered some sort of tragic temporary amnesia. “He works for Syco. The label that pretty much ruined your life. The label that has pretty much ruined contemporary music for everyone. I’d rather cut out my vocal cords than let Syco get their hands on anything I’ve recorded.”

Zayn is frowning at him, not as though he’s miraculously recovered all his memories of, like, their _entire life stories_ , but as though Harry has somehow disappointed him.

“Hang on...is that why you put my song on? Because you wanted Louis Tomlinson to _sign me_? I thought you were just trying to embarrass me!”

“Not sign you, exactly. Just...maybe give you some professional feedback. Would that really be so bad?” Zayn asks, giving him another of his inscrutable looks.

Harry laughs and kicks at Zayn’s legs. “Louis Tomlinson may be pretty, but he’s the _last_ person in the world I would sing for.”

All the same, there had been something about Louis during their conversation -- something a little guarded and a little sad -- that makes Harry wonder what it would feel like, if he did.

 

***

 

Louis holds out for five whole days before going back to the Songbird. In those five days, he manages to break the office coffee maker despite only ever drinking tea, reduce several artists and one sound engineer to tears, get into a shouting match with Liam over a minor 7th chord, and write a grand total of zero words.

It’s Niall who finally hauls him to the pub, shoves a pint into his hands, and just _stares_ over the rim of his glass until Louis starts talking.

“The album that we did together, it’s the proudest I’ve been about anything,” Louis finally admits miserably, after somehow managing to drink half his pint and half of Niall’s. “And I don’t know if I can go back to writing the other stuff. I _have_ been trying.” It seems important, somehow, to insist on that. “But listening to that song in the record shop, all I could think was: _that’s_ who should be singing my music. And whenever I try to write anything now, it just...comes out in his voice. Not Meghan Trainor’s, or whoever I’m meant to be writing for that day.”

Niall is giving him an odd look, and so Louis laughs sharply and continues. “Bit pathetic, innit? I don’t even know who sang it, and suddenly I’m having a quarter-life crisis. I just feel like, maybe if I heard it again, I could put the whole thing to rest?”

“So do it,” Niall says abruptly. Louis opens his mouth to object, but Niall beats him to it. “Lou, c’mon, you can be _such_ a little shit about things you want. And it’s easy to just go back and ask again.”

“Thanks, mate, you’re the best,” Louis says ruefully. He refuses to admit to Niall that he’d been putting off returning to the Songbird, his encounter with that clerk -- Harry -- still too clear in his mind. Louis tells himself sternly that Niall is right, and he’s being childish. So what if Harry had been unrepentantly unhelpful and had hated his music? So what if he’d been oddly lovely, even as he’d made it clear he had the lowest possible opinion of Louis himself? So what if his slow smirk had made Louis’ cheeks heat and his hands tremble with the desire to touch. 

With a force of will, Louis shoves all those thoughts to the side and makes a resolution to go back to the Songbird at once. He glances up to find Niall watching him over the rim of his pint glass, and a thought strikes him. 

“You know it’s not about you, right? This thing with the mystery singer? Because you’re a fucking brilliant singer, and if it meant that you’d have the success you deserve, I’d write fifty fucking albums for you. Each year.”

Niall’s face goes uncharacteristically serious. “That isn’t what either of us deserve.” He brightens again almost immediately as he adds, “But it’s nice to know you’d risk hand cramps for me. Such a gentleman.” He pretends to swoon, and Louis shoves at him.

“I’m suddenly reassessing how much I like you. Be careful, or I’ll make Liam write them instead.”

Niall giggles and shoves back. “Who says I want your shit music anyway? Maybe one day I’ll run away to join Flogging Molly, and then where’ll you be?”

“Not bloody likely,” Louis snorts. “They’d turn your arse around and tell you to go back to your whiny guitar. Flogging Molly doesn’t mess about.” Niall takes this as a cue to launch into a racy drinking song just to prove he can.

When they leave the pub, Louis walks past the Tube line that goes to his flat, and gets on the train toward the Songbird instead.

 

***

 

Harry isn’t expecting Louis to come back so soon. He’s not expecting Louis to come back _at all_ , to be honest. But suddenly Harry looks up and there he is, his soft sweater exchanged for a sleek black button-down that’s somehow both work-appropriate and also utterly _inappropriate_ for Harry to stare at. He has to forcibly ignore the way the fabric clings to the curves of Louis’ waist when he walks, which is why he’s looking at Louis’ face intently enough to notice that Louis’ eyes have gone a bit narrow and predatory as he surveys the shop. Harry swallows.

“ _Huh_ ,” Zayn says, glancing between Harry and Louis before making a beeline for the storage room. Harry can still see him out of the corner of his eye, hanging not-at-all-sneakily around the doorway and grinning like an idiot.

When Harry looks back toward the front of the shop, he’s startled to see Louis appear directly in front of him and lean against the front desk as though they’ve been best friends for years. And while his expression has turned perfectly pleasant now, Harry fancies he can still see something devious in the curve of his smile.

“I’m Louis, by the way,” he begins abruptly, crinkling his eyes at Harry like they’re sharing an inside joke. “Don’t think we were properly introduced before.”

“No, we weren’t,” Harry admits, and tries very hard not to smile back.

“So you’re Harry? Unless you’re playing a _really_ long con?” Louis nods at Harry’s name-tag.

“‘S called the Record Store Scam,” Harry retorts promptly. “Step one: charm your way into a record store. Step two: sit around with a fake name-tag. Step three: boundless profits.” Louis lets out a sudden, startled bark of laughter at that, and Harry feels a swell in the pit of his stomach like he’s just accomplished something momentous.

“And how’s that working out for you so far, Keyser Söze?” Louis teases, his voice dropping a little lower as he leans further forward against the desk. His eyes are even more hypnotizing up close, a swirl of blues that Harry wants to memorize, Harry’s body swaying unconsciously forward as well.

“Uh,” he says. He finds he’s forgotten the question. Louis grins, and Harry gets lost in the line of his jaw. It’s like he’s half-drunk or something, the way he can only focus on bits and pieces, his thoughts coming lethargically one-by-one.

“Sorry,” Louis says, and something in his expression shutters abruptly when he straightens up. It’s easier for Harry to concentrate now, and he should be thankful. Instead he feels a bit like pouting.

“Anyway, I don’t mean to bother you, but I was wondering if you’d heard anything more about the singer of that ‘Strong’ cover...”

The memory of their previous encounter washes over Harry like a cold wave. “Right. The cover. Sorry mate, it’s still a mystery.”

“Well you’re in luck, because I happen to _love_ a good mystery.” Louis gives Harry what he clearly thinks is a very winning smile, filled with wide eyes and just a hint of artifice. It might have worked on Harry, too, if his head wasn’t filled with the way Louis’ earlier smile had lit up his whole face. “And I know you’re quite busy, but _I_ wouldn’t mind sorting through the old demos that you have lying around.”

Harry knows his expression has flattened into an unimpressed frown. He shouldn’t be sorry that Louis has proven himself to be that special Syco combination of relentless and manipulative. It’s only confirming what he’d already known, after all.

“Why do you even care?” he asks, and that disappointed pang in his chest makes it come out harsher than he intended. Louis blinks.

“It was good,” he finally says, carefully. Harry’s eyes narrow. Louis sighs, and runs his hand across his fringe a little helplessly. “...And I’d really like to hear it again. So even if I could just get a copy of the track? I would be so grateful, you have _no_  idea.”

"Whatever,” Harry laughs, stretching back in his chair and kicking his feet up to rest on the counter. It’s not like he actually expected Louis to tell the truth. 

“No really,” Louis insists, and now _he’s_ starting to look a little offended, which is rich coming from him. “I don’t know what you think--”’

And Harry is suddenly furious, angry enough to not really question whether it’s proportional. People like Louis Tomlinson tried to _ruin_ his best friend’s life. _He’s not a nice person_ , Harry reminds himself savagely. It’s all been a trick to get something he wants. Every warm smile, every teasing comment, every tingle that’s shot down Harry’s spine has been manipulated.

“I think if I told you who sang that song, you’d try to coerce them into something, and if I gave you a copy, you’d find a way sell it,” Harry snaps.

Louis’ eyes widen with shock before turning icy. He’d been resting his hands on the counter casually, but now he pulls them in towards himself like he’s preparing to block a punch. When he answers, his voice is utterly neutral, smoothed of any of the teasing or frustrated notes that had filled it up until now.

“Awful lot of assumptions in that curly head of yours,” he drawls. “Is that what you have to tell yourself? To work here? Oh, it’s OK that you’re not _doing_ anything, _creating_ music somewhere, because _those_ people are all evil anyway? But you profit off this dirty industry same as the rest of us.” Louis sweeps a contemptuous glance around the store. “Viva la revolución, yeah?”

“Fuck you,” Harry spits, nearly falling out of his chair in his haste to stand up and confront Louis eye-to-eye. He takes a sort of savage satisfaction in the fact that he’s taller. He might get tongue-tied and clumsy when he’s angry, overwhelmed by the strength of his own emotion, but at least he can tower menacingly over his opposition. But somehow Louis is _still_ managing to look down his nose at Harry, even while being several inches shorter.

“Not as fun when someone does it to you, is it?” Louis says, already half-turned to walk out the door.

“You’re _really_ telling me you’re the only honest man in the music business?” Harry calls after him. As parting shots go, it’s relatively weak, and he doesn’t truly expect it to land. To his surprise, Louis falters and stills.

“No,” he says, glancing back over his shoulder, his face looking suddenly too pale against his dark shirt, a grim look in his eyes that Harry is helpless to interpret. “Not saying that at all.”

 

***

 

“Well that escalated quickly,” Zayn says once Louis has shoved his way out the door. “By my count, the two of you managed to frighten away four-and-a-half customers.”

“A half?” Harry asks, distracted. Zayn shrugs.

“One of them was about to buy a Nickelback album. So really, you were doing them a favor.”

“Watch it,” Harry warns lightly, before hopping up on the counter to sit with his legs drumming angrily against the sides, his thoughts immediately returning to _stupid_ Louis Tomlinson. “Ugh. Can you _believe_ him, Z?”

“I _can_ believe you might break our desk,” Zayn says neutrally. Something about his tone turns Harry defensive. 

“Didn’t you hear all that bollocks about name-tags and mystery-solving? He was trying to _seduce_ me,” Harry insists, outraged.

“Looked to me like it was working,” Zayn says, trying to keep from giggling at his own joke, and failing miserably.

“Shut up, you know what I mean! He was using his _Syco wiles_ on me, being all charming and persuasive and shit.” Harry’s feet drum faster against the counter.

“I’m not...entirely sure of that?” Zayn says carefully. He must see something in Harry’s face, because he rushes to add, “Look, Haz, I’m not denying what Syco is. I’m just saying that he seemed genuine from where I was standing. And it’s possible that you may have jumped -- a small jump, like a little hop, maybe? -- to some conclusions.”

“You just like him because he said my cover was good,” Harry says sullenly. He stops kicking, and instead pulls his feet up to sit cross-legged on the counter. Zayn shrugs, but another goofy smile is tugging on the corners of his mouth.

“He _did_ say it was good, though,” Zayn reminds him. Harry laughs, and throws a pile of nearby order forms at him.

“God, you’re such a soft touch.”

 

***

 

The minute Louis turns the corner away from the Songbird, he pulls out his mobile and dials Liam.

“Hipster Harry is _flirty_ ,” Louis wails into the phone the second it’s picked up. “He’s really fit and he’s _flirty_ , and _my focus was shattered_. And now he hates me!”

“Sorry, who?” asks Liam, baffled.

“I hate _you_ ,” Louis retorts, and then hangs up on him.

 

***

 

Since his last visit to the record store had gone so horribly, Louis is newly determined to forget anything to do with Niall’s album, or the Songbird, or _fucking_ Hipster Harry.

To distract himself, he locks Liam’s keyboard onto the “organ” setting and hides the manual. Liam retaliates by, in the course of trying to fix it, accidentally coming up with a new melody that isn’t terrible. He sends Louis an absurdly smug Edible Arrangement to thank him for the “help.” Even the pineapple slices look self-righteous. They spend the rest of the day skirmishing with tiny strawberry skewers. That night, Louis has vague dreams of green eyes and large, clever hands that push him up against a record store desk and take him apart to the sound of his own music. He wakes up hard and gasping, and while he tries to push the dream images out of his mind, he can nevertheless feel the trace of ghostly fingers against his hips throughout the whole morning.

Perhaps it’s that phantom sensation that tugs him toward the Songbird at lunchtime, because Louis genuinely cannot remember deciding to go. Even as he stands outside the shop window, he reminds himself that Harry is _clearly_ just like every other musically minded asshole who thinks Nicki Minaj would be alright if only she added more ukulele. He’s self-righteous, and rude, and there’s nothing special about him, certainly nothing to account for the way he’s made Louis’ subconscious go into sudden overdrive.

Sharply, Louis wheels away from the Songbird’s door and goes across the street to a cafe instead, trying to make it appear as though he’d intended it the whole time. He tugs his beanie lower over his forehead, puts on sunglasses, and gets a seat by the window, nursing a mug of tea and scribbling stray lyrics in his notebook in an attempt to look busy.

And then suddenly the writing isn’t an act anymore, something whirring into motion in Louis’ brain until words are flying onto the page and he can hear the melody of this newest song as though it were being played for him. Perhaps it’s something about the tea and the pale sunlight filtering through the window that makes it easy for Louis after so many weeks of nothing. It definitely has nothing to do with the fact that he’s thinking of Harry.

Louis becomes so engrossed in writing that he completely forgets to keep an eye on the Songbird across the street. And so he doesn’t notice Zayn peering out the window at him before strolling over to the cafe.

The first indication Louis gets that he’s been spotted is an unfamiliar voice saying, “You look like a hungover celebrity” as a tattooed arm pushes a new mug of tea into his field of vision.

“Cheers,” Louis says distractedly. “Too much rhyme, d’you think?” He shoves forward a battered notebook filled with near-indecipherable scribbles.

“And yeah, I let you use me from the day that we first met, but I’m not done yet,” Zayn murmurs, trying out the sound of words. “Erm, no? I think it helps prolong the tension until you release with ‘fool’s gold.’”

“Yes, yes, exactly, good,” Louis mutters, pulling the notebook back and jotting down something cryptic in the margin. He finally looks up, fully intending to thank whoever he’d just conscripted into his creative process, but stops when he sees Zayn.

“Wait...I know you.”

“Yeah, ‘m Zayn. I work for Harry at the Songbird,” Zayn clarifies, smirking a bit at the way Louis’ eyes widen.

“Oh. _Shit_. Did he send you out here?”

“’S his day off, actually,” Zayn says, slipping into the seat across from Louis. It’s quiet for a moment, in which Louis watches Zayn watching him. He has the sudden disconcerting impression that every detail, from his beanie to his notebook, is being catalogued by someone much cleverer than him.

“That song’s not for Bieber or any of them,” Zayn finally says. It’s unexpected enough that Louis is startled into a bark of laughter.

“No, could you imagine it?”

Zayn starts a quiet beatbox, eyes mischievous, and Louis obliges by singing his new song to the tune of “Sorry” until they’re both giggling too helplessly to continue.

“You’re rubbish at reconnaissance,” Zayn says suddenly, still chuckling a bit. “You’re, like, the most conspicuous person here. I just thought you should know, in case you’re considering burglary as a permanent career.” 

“I wasn’t--” Louis starts, already prepared with several brilliant excuses for his presence in this particular cafe. But Zayn just rolls his eyes and waves his hand at Louis like he’s already bored.

“What’s so important about that song, then?” Zayn asks, and unlike when Harry’d asked the same question, his voice holds no accusation, only genuine curiosity. Louis is a little shocked to realize that he hasn’t actually thought of the “Strong” cover in days, that he’d been thrumming with such irritation at Harry that he’d almost forgotten why he’d gone to the Songbird in the first place. But Zayn is looking at him expectantly, and so Louis sighs and says:

“It’s complicated.” He tugs off his beanie and shoves his fringe out of his eyes. “Nothing to do with Syco,” he hurries to amend, remembering Harry again.

“I’ve heard those kinds of labels have a lot of power over people,” Zayn answers carefully, trying not to sound too knowledgeable about any of it. Louis misinterprets his tone, though, and zeroes back in on Zayn, his eyes suddenly sharp.

“I know you and Harry think I’m, like, a Bond villain or something,” Louis starts defiantly.

“I do not,” Zayn snaps back, half-annoyed with Louis for taking his sympathy for accusation, and half-annoyed that Louis is right about Harry. _Stupid, overprotective arse_ , Zayn thinks fondly.

Louis is evidently abashed enough by Zayn’s tone that he hides behind his mug of tea until he’s thought through his response.

“The ‘Strong’ cover? It’s a bit perfect, to be honest, and I--” he hesitates almost imperceptibly before continuing. “I know _Niall_ never thought to sing it that way. When _he_ was writing it. I think he just...dashed it off without really working through what it meant? And so I suppose I wanted to find the singer so I could ask him how he knew. That _that’s_ how it should sound." 

Louis’ face is soft and fragile behind the mug of tea he’s still cradling, and Zayn suddenly understands what Harry’d meant about being seduced. Because it’s almost alarming how easily Louis has allowed Zayn, a perfect stranger, to see something that clearly matters a great deal to him. It’s either some genius-level manipulation on Louis’ part, or it’s a fucking miracle that Simon Cowell hasn’t destroyed him already.

Zayn still isn’t sure which option to choose, studying Louis and his notebook for some clue, the heavy silence making Louis fidget.

“Look, forget it--” Louis starts uncomfortably at the same time that Zayn blurts out:

“Harry was lying. He knows who sang it.”

“What? _Oh_ ,” Louis breathes, dropping his mug down on the table hard enough that tea sloshes over the sides, and leaning forward as though he might not catch Zayn’s next words. “Who--”

“Sorry.” Zayn shrugs easily. Louis notes that Zayn doesn’t specify whether it’s that he _can’t_ or _won’t_ tell, but he suspects the latter. Either way, it’s clear he’s not getting anything more.

“Want another tea?” Zayn asks, gesturing at the puddle on the table, and Louis jumps up.

“I’ll get it. What’ll you have?”

“If you’re paying? Something expensive. But then I should get back to the shop,” Zayn says, grinning. Louis laughs, brings back something horrifically sweetened, and bets Zayn he can’t figure out all the ingredients. Zayn refuses to let Louis go until he guesses correctly, and so Louis stays in the Songbird for the rest of the afternoon, trotting back to the cafe to retrieve increasingly vile syrup mixtures that they each dare the other to try until it makes them both ill.

“You should come to our Pub Night! It’ll be fun! Bring whoever you like!” Louis exclaims sometime during their third hour of steady caffeination.

“Alright,” Zayn answers, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, “but first let’s replace the entire death metal section with copies of Taylor Swift’s _Red_ , and take bets on who complains first.”

 

***

 

So Louis hadn’t _expressly_ included Harry in his invitation to the pub.

“He won’t be there,” Louis insists to his reflection in the mirror, tongue sticking out a bit as he fails _yet again_ to make his hair look casually perfect.

“This is stupid,” he tells the pile of rejected shirts on his floor.

“Fucking _ukuleles_ , remember?” he mutters direly as he tugs on his tightest jeans, the ones he knows for a fact make his bum look incredible.

When Louis arrives at the pub, Liam zeroes in on his clothing immediately, narrowing his eyes and asking: “Why’re you dressed like you’re going to a club?”

“M’not, this is just what I was wearing,” Louis says, a little too loudly to be believable, and he can feel the blush rising on his cheeks. “Where’s Niall, anyway?”

“Date.” Liam dismisses this blatant attempt at a diversion with an unimpressed shrug. But before he can pursue the topic, Zayn arrives, pushing through a crowd near the door to reach their table.

“I know him. He works at the Songbird,” Liam yelps, turning wide accusatory eyes on Louis.

“Evening,” Zayn says, having finally made it to their table. He glances at Louis and smirks.

“Nice blazer,” he adds, and blithely ignores Louis’ indignant “Why is everyone so obsessed with my wardrobe tonight!?” to turn to Liam. It looks to Louis as though Liam’s elbow slips off the table a bit when Zayn introduces himself as “Zayn Malik,” but he recovers almost instantly.

And just then, Harry pushes through the pub doors, sees Louis sitting next to Zayn, and stops dead. The look of horror on his face would be comical if it wasn’t also so insulting. He clearly wasn’t expecting to meet anyone but Zayn here; he’s wearing a loose brown sweatshirt and has his hair pulled back messily with a green scarf. Louis remembers Zayn saying it was Harry’s day off today, and he wonders what Harry’s been doing, to look so relaxed and rumpled now. Louis suddenly has a vivid image of Harry just waking up from an afternoon nap, his eyelashes casting soft shadows on his cheeks and his curls sticking up adorably as he scrubs a hand over his face. 

Louis thinks about his own carefully styled appearance, and feels exactly like the asshole Harry already thinks he is.

Liam is shooting Louis meaningful glares, while Zayn slides out of his seat smoothly and offers to get them a round. The minute he’s out of earshot, Liam hisses: “You didn’t invite Hipster Harry here, did you? Because if you’re trying to pry information out of him, you should know: alcohol and those jeans can only get you so far.”

“False. These jeans can get me anywhere I want to go,” Louis retorts automatically, completely focused on the heated conversation Zayn is having with Harry, as Zayn drags him to the bar by the arm. “And I didn’t invite him. He’s awful.” Zayn has a look of elaborate innocence on his face, while Harry in turn seems deeply unamused. Louis strains to hear any snippet of their conversation, even as he knows it’s a lost cause in the crowded pub.

“Oh yes, because I always look like I want to _devour_ the men I dislike,” Liam mutters.

“What?” Louis asks distantly.

“Hmm? Nothing!” Liam says, eyes wide, his expression suspiciously identical to Zayn’s.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, at the bar, Harry is hissing recriminations into Zayn’s ear. 

“I don’t even understand what you’re playing at. I thought we all agreed that Louis Tomlinson is the _worst_. And is that Liam Payne? Fuck, Zayn, Louis looks like he just came from some posh music event and I didn’t even know to _change_. Like, have I offended you in some way? Is this revenge for the thing with the flowerpot?”

Zayn blithely ignores Harry’s increasingly hysterical monologue as they wait for the bartender to pour their beers. Finally, as they’re about to turn back to the table, Zayn turns to Harry. 

“I like him,” he says mildly. “Give him a chance, and don’t be an arse. Also, I'm never forgiving you for the thing with the flowerpot, so don't even bother.” He grabs two of the beers and leaves Harry outraged.

“I am not--” he starts, chasing after. Zayn just turns and blinks at him. Twice.

“Fine,” Harry mumbles. “I promise that I will be lovely, and Louis will be terrible, and you’ll see that I was right all along.”

“Sounds fair,” Zayn grins.

When Harry and Zayn circle back to the table, Louis and Liam are in the middle of some private tussle, shoving at each others’ sides viciously. When they see the others, they both freeze, like cats who’ve been caught doing something forbidden, and Harry almost laughs.

“He started it,” they insist simultaneously, and then glare at each other.

“ _Liam_ said--” Louis starts, and Harry is fascinated to see a blush rise to his cheeks as he stares up at Harry with wide blue eyes, momentarily lost for words. “Er...he said something rude,” Louis finishes vaguely.

Liam rescues him by adding easily: “Alright, maybe I did start it. Zayn, sit over here, I want to hear how you met our Louis.” He indicates the seat next to him, and then gives Louis a gleeful look. Zayn gives Harry a similarly evil smile, and acquiesces. They immediately fall into an intense conversation that leaves Harry and Louis staring awkwardly at each other. Harry sinks down into the only seat left -- the one next to Louis -- and shoves over one of the beers before he remembers his promise to be nice.

“Heard any good music lately?” he mumbles half-heartedly. Louis stares at him incredulously for a beat before he bursts out laughing. His eyes squint shut he rocks backward, like his whole body has abandoned itself completely to his own delight.

“That was truly pathetic,” he manages to get out, still giggling. “But you do get credit for the effort.”

“Yeah?” Harry asks, and can’t help the slow smile that spreads across his own face. “Like, how much credit are we talking about?”

“At least enough for another round,” Louis answers with a teasing glimmer in his eyes as he waves his hand casually. Harry tracks the shapes his thin, expressive fingers make in the air, like there might be a secret code there, some key to unlocking the mystery of Louis Tomlinson.

“Oh, are there rewards? Good to know,” Harry says, still distracted by Louis’ hands and not noticing that his voice has gone strangely deep until Louis makes a desperate grab for his beer with a little choking sound.

“Well, I already owe Zayn,” Louis answers wildly, after taking a massive swig. “May as well go for broke.”

“Why do you owe Zayn?” Harry asks, shocked at his own, sudden spike of annoyance, which only grows when Louis grins broadly at Zayn and makes a funny face that has Zayn wheezing with laughter. Harry resists the childish urge to demand to be let in on the joke. But nevertheless, this feels quite unfair of them both. Zayn is _his_ best friend, and Louis is--

Harry’s train of thought stutters to a halt.

“...so this bloke is _shouting_ , right? And he’s _huge_ and _terrifying_ ,” Louis is saying when Harry’s brain comes back online. He makes the same face again, and Zayn dissolves back into giggles.

“He looked _just_ like that,” Zayn gasps.

“And he’s going _off_ at Zayn, and I thought we were both gonna die. But Zayn just looks at him, with this amazing poker-face, and goes, ‘Taylor is totally metal. Haven’t you heard '22'? That’s some dark shit.’ And the guy just fucking _deflates_ , and then he fucking _buys the album_ , I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’m a natural-born salesman,” Zayn says modestly, and Louis high-fives him across the table, cackling. When he turns back to Harry, his bright grin wobbles into something hesitant, like he’s realized that Harry may not appreciate this story.

“Er...sorry we tormented your customers,” he says, and Harry wants to do nothing more than touch his thumb to the pout of Louis’ lip so he can feel that smile for himself. 

“I prefer the term _improved_ ,” Harry says, and he’s trying to be casual but he knows he’s staring at Louis with a starved eagerness that must look well-and-truly stupid to everyone else. Louis laughs again, and Harry can feel a tension easing in his own shoulders.

“Well, I can always come round again, with my mission of mercy. Put Drake CDs in the Classic Rock section, and Spice Girls next to Carly Simon.”

“Hey, don’t knock the Spice Girls, they were the voice of a generation,” Harry says mildly, and Louis stares.

“They have absolutely zero ukuleles,” he offers carefully, and now it’s Harry’s turn to stare.

“I...know? Don’t tell me you’re not a fan? I always thought Little Mix’s ‘One Thing’ had a kind of ‘Stop’ vibe to it, and you wrote that, didn’t you?”

“Co-wrote,” Louis says automatically, although Liam is deep in some arcane debate with Zayn about H. P. Lovecraft, and doesn’t notice. “I suppose I’m just surprised, I thought you didn’t like pop music,” Louis continues, shrugging. Harry thinks back to their two previous conversations, and shifts uncomfortably. Had he really sounded like such a pretentious arse?

_Yes_ , says a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Zayn. He even glances over, but Zayn is saying something very serious about tentacles, and clearly hadn’t spoken to Harry at all. Meanwhile, Louis is looking increasingly self-conscious about bringing up their former argument, his smile gone a bit forced and his eyes flickering around everywhere but Harry’s face.

“I was a little shit, wasn’t I?” Harry says bluntly, and his ploy works: it startles a laugh out of Louis. Victory.

“You were right about a lot of it, too,” Louis says, clearly thinking about something in particular that he’s unwilling to share. Liam must hear a secret friend-signal in Louis’ voice, because he abruptly breaks off his conversation with Zayn and then, to Harry and Zayn’s total confusion, pushes the rest of his beer over to Louis with a small smile.

Louis’ smile goes a little wobbly with some undefined emotion, before he recovers and says: “You’re such a _sap_ , Liam,” downing the quarter-pint in one long pull. Harry watches the line of his throat as he drinks, and he can’t help but wonder if Louis would lean back in just the same way, his eyes fluttering closed, if someone was biting down the contour of his neck. Would he mumble words while their hands strayed down his back to sweep the curve of his bum? Or would a hot mouth against his skin make him go incoherent, all those sharp words twisting into moans? A jolt of desire pools in Harry’s stomach, and he suddenly wants _nothing more in the world_ than to find out what Louis Tomlinson sounds like when he’s being properly fucked.

Louis breaks the spell by slamming Liam’s pint glass down on the table and then bouncing up out of his seat.

“I’ll get the next round, since I got tricked into making bets with Zayn. Give me a hand, Curly?” Louis asks, tilting his head toward the bar and ambling off like he’s confident Harry will follow. Zayn, eyebrows raised, mouths “Curly?” but Harry barely notices. He’s too busy tumbling out of his seat and tripping after Louis like it’s an automatic response.

He’s halfway to the bar before Harry realizes that _he_ might be the one who’s properly fucked.

When they both return, “Diana” is just coming on the radio, and Harry can’t help but grin. Louis and Liam are smiling too, but it’s in a private way that leaves Harry completely lost. 

“God, this song again?” Liam says with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.

“How pretentious, titling a song after a woman’s name. Who does he think he is, Sting?” Louis grins back.

“Think Niall will ever tell us the identity of this mysterious Diana?” Liam asks.

“You ask me, he just picked a name at random. He _is_ a bit of a poser,” Louis answers _very_ seriously, before they both dissolve into giggles, and Zayn’s eyes widen in some sort of silent realization. But Harry can’t take it anymore.

“This song is actually brilliant. You know that, don’t you?” he interrupts crossly. He feels a bit like they’re profaning one of his religious relics, to be honest. Louis and Liam both look at him, Liam in shock and Louis with something oddly like alarm.

“Like, I know you’re friends with him and all, so maybe you’re just used to it? But when I heard his album for the first time, I forgot to breathe through the first song and then I cried through the rest. _That’s_ what his music does to people. How can you laugh at that? It’s like neither of you can really _see_ it anymore.” 

Harry has gotten so wrapped up in his own rant, his sense of outrage building the more he goes on, that it takes him a moment to realize that the vibe of the table has turned painfully tense. Liam’s face had gone red, his eyes fixed determinedly on some point in the middle distance, and even Zayn is glaring at Harry like he could shut him up through sheer force of will.

But it’s Louis that makes Harry feel almost physically sick. His face has been completely drained of all color, his mouth pressed into a small, horrible line. Even worse is the look in his eyes, like something has just broken beyond repair.

“I...” Louis says, his voice sounding muffled and unrecognizable. “I need to...I can’t...” He makes a helpless motion with his hands and without another word, bolts for the door.

“Shit,” Harry says into the table’s ringing silence, guilty but also bewildered. “Was that rude?” He appeals to Liam and Zayn, but neither of them respond.

“I need to...” Harry says, unconsciously echoing Louis as he stumbles up to his feet and chases after.

He finds Louis in an alleyway next to the pub, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, his head tipped up to the sky. When he was drinking his beer moments ago, that same posture had seemed almost unbearably erotic. But now all Harry wants to do is spread his fingers out against Louis’ jacket and pull him into a tight hug, to smooth out the rough edges of their relationship so that he doesn’t keep unwittingly scraping against them. 

Louis must sense his presence, because he opens his eyes, and Harry lets his arm drop to his side. 

“Louis Tomlinson, soulless,” Louis says with an ugly laugh, and Harry recognizes the word from their first conversation.

“I should never have said that. It’s not true,” he says, drawing closer, forgetting that they barely know each other in the rush of desire to touch Louis, to fix what he didn’t realize he was breaking. 

“It _is_ though,” Louis insists harshly, pushing off the wall to face Harry head-on, eyes like slivers of ice and fists clenched. “I signed away my soul to a record label, and the worst part is, I _knew_ better.”

“You can get out,” Harry says promptly, taking a few careful steps toward Louis like he’s a wild animal about to bolt. “It feels impossible but I’ve helped people before--" 

Louis’ laugh sounds like breaking glass. Harry winces, and takes another step.

“It’s too late, it’s done. My best thing...” Louis says. Harry feels a little lost, wonders if they’re actually talking about the same subject. He takes three more steps toward Louis. And suddenly Louis looks up, his eyes narrowing like he’s just noticing Harry for the first time. There’s still something...off about him, but before Harry can figure it out, Louis has surged forward to close the gap between them, his hands tangling into Harry’s curls and tugging their mouths together.

It takes Harry a couple beats to realize what’s going on before he makes an embarrassing little noise and kisses back, matching Louis’ urgency and sliding his tongue into that warm, soft mouth. His hands are moving of their own accord, sliding down to play against the sliver of skin just inside Louis’ jeans, and then pulling Louis in by the hips so that they’re pressed flush against each other. 

But then Louis gasps and backs away, panting a bit as he stares at Harry. Harry actually reaches out to close this new, intolerable gap between them. Now that he knows what it feels like to be kissing Louis, any second of _not_  kissing him feels like a tragic waste. Louis smiles a little sadly and ducks around his arm.

“Niall is definitely too straight to kiss you for what you just said about his music. But someone needed to,” he says quietly, face unreadable, before he turns toward the mouth of the alleyway. He pauses once he reaches the pavement and angles his head back towards Harry.

“See you around,” Louis adds with a small smile. He’s gone before Harry can think of a response.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry spends the next twelve hours alternating between wheedling, bribing, and threatening Zayn into giving him Louis’ phone number. Although he doesn’t understand exactly what for, he’s bright enough to realize that he needs to apologize to Louis for something, and Harry hates feeling like he’s wronged someone but can’t resolve it.

He also can’t help but think that if the apology goes well enough, Louis might kiss him again. Yes. That could absolutely happen.

Zayn merely says “don’t seem so desperate, it’s embarrassing,” and holds his phone tauntingly out of reach.

Except it turns out Harry doesn’t have to wait, because in the early afternoon Louis sidles back into the Songbird.

“You’re here. In my shop,” Harry says stupidly when he sees him. Louis looks up, a fond expression sweeping across his face, while Harry’s own face is no doubt doing something horribly embarrassing.

“Well spotted,” Louis teases, shooting Harry a small grin that makes something in Harry’s chest go wobbly. But Louis seems to recall his purpose for coming, because with a little shake of his head, he stops smiling and starts to look awkward instead. “Er...so I know I keep acting a bit mad, barging into the Songbird and--” he stutters to a halt, and Harry is _very_ interested in the way Louis’ eyes flicker down his lips before darting back up. “And I know you think Niall is brilliant, so...”

Louis gestures jerkily toward the door, and Harry sees that another person has entered the shop. He’d been so distracted by Louis that he hadn’t noticed.

“That’s Niall Horan,” Harry tells Louis, mouth dropping open, hand automatically running through his hair, a nervous gesture that he knows makes him look like a total prat. As Zayn never fails to remind him.

“Yes, you’re on quite a roll today,” Louis says, like he finds Harry endearing instead of just deeply awkward. Niall, meanwhile, is slouched against the shop door, looking really cool and more than a little amused. Louis gives Niall a glare that says something along the lines of “get on with it,” before turning hesitant, searching eyes onto Harry’s face.

“Lovely to meet another ‘Diana’ fan,” Niall tells Harry easily, pushing himself off the door and holding out his hand. Louis makes a smothered scoffing noise behind him that Niall serenely ignores.

“Lou told me to leave it off the album, but I think it’s great,” Niall adds, rolling his eyes. Harry shoots a glance over to Louis, who’s retreated to lurk behind one of the shelves. He’s flipping through albums like he’s ignoring their conversation, but Harry can see an odd tension in the hands holding the CD cases.

“Sorry to have missed Pub Night last night, but we’ll do it again, yeah?” Niall continues with a charming smile, dragging Harry’s attention back to him, and suddenly it truly hits Harry that _Niall Horan is in his shop_.

“Can I just ask?” Harry blurts out, “about the water motif? And, like, how much of it was about creating a unified album? Or is it just something you subconsciously include in your lyrics? And the line in ‘Through the Dark’ about hoping their heart is strong enough? Was that a deliberate reference to ‘Strong’ two tracks before, or --”

Niall interrupts him, looking a little overwhelmed.

“Er...well...I think it was more just...a lack of originality?”

Harry hears another indignant sound, and when he turns his head slightly, he sees Louis’ blue eyes glaring at Niall through a crack in a display case.

“What can I say?” Niall adds, clearly warming up to his topic. “My talent as a songwriter has been vastly overblown.”

Somewhere to his right, a stack of CDs clatters to the floor.

“But that’s not true at all,” Harry tells Niall, ashamed at how his voice has suddenly gone funny and breathless.

“M’afraid it is. Like ‘Diana’ for instance. Did you know I wrote that after a drunken Diana Ross bender? Stayed up half the night crying to ‘You Can’t Hurry Love.’”

Something in Louis’ self-control must snap then, because he’s suddenly at Niall’s shoulder, voice light but with a tenseness to his jaw that Harry, after only a handful of encounters, has already learned to be wary of.

“Funny, that sounds like the kind of embarrassing story you’d prefer to keep to yourself. Or only share with a handful of your _very best mates_.”

“Harry’s a mate,” Niall retorts with a wink at Harry. “Aren’t you?”

But Harry barely notices the comment, only that they’ve deviated from his original topic.

“But so, like, about ‘Through the Dark’...’” he insists. He’s desperately running through the list of questions he’d vowed to ask Niall Horan if he ever met him. There is actually a list, written carefully in one of his private journals, and numbered in order of importance. Harry wonders if he can justify ducking into the storeroom to consult it.

“It’s honestly one of my favorite songs. And I know musicians often have, like, underwhelming inspiration stories that they hate sharing? But I don’t care if it’s stupid, I would still love to know...” Harry trails off, suddenly feeling foolish and like he’s imposing an awful lot on a veritable stranger. He curls in on himself a bit. “I mean...it’s fine. It’s just such a lovely song.”

The smile has slid abruptly off Niall’s face, his eyes darting from Harry’s earnest, admiring gaze to Louis’ fidgety frown. He seems to come to some sort of conclusion, because he finally answers slowly:

“It’s alright. But I’ll let Louis tell it.”

“What?” Louis pulls his eyes up from their fixed contemplation of the ground, his whole face going comically astonished.

“Yeah, you’ve heard it enough times, it’s almost like you were there,” Niall says, tilting his head significantly. As with most conversations with Louis Tomlinson, Harry finds himself at a bit of a loss.

“Fine.” Louis runs his hand across his fringe, which Harry is starting to recognize as Louis’ own hair-based nervous habit. “It was actually a song Niall wrote for someone, his sis--” He’s momentarily distracted by Niall’s abrupt -- and entirely unsubtle -- head shake.

“Oh, I mean...close family friend? And anyway, she was in secondary school, having a bit of trouble with the other girls, and in a relationship with a shitty sixth form boy, and it all sounds like normal teenage stuff, but when--er, when _Niall_ went home next, it was like...I suppose like the light in her had gone out, if that makes sense?”

Louis had started by directing his narrative toward Niall, still clearly engaged in whatever silent argument had been happening over Harry’s head. But as he continues, and his voice gets quieter and a bit wobbly, it’s Harry’s gaze that he holds steadily throughout.

“Her whole life, see, she’s been this wickedly funny little _shit_ of a kid, and then suddenly everything about her just seemed muffled. And when you’ve always been the one to look after your sister, and suddenly it’s like nothing you say makes a bit of difference? I suppose the song just came from that feeling, that you’d do anything to rescue someone, but you realize that you can’t, and you have to let them rescue themselves. Not an easy thing for an older brother to deal with, by the way,” Louis finishes ruefully to Harry, clearly attempting to inject a bit of humor back into a conversation that Harry is realizing has somehow spiraled out of all their control.

Like, it’s pretty clear that whoever Niall’s family friend is, Louis knows and cares about her too. Why else would his face have gone so painfully soft and distant, his hands tugging down nervously at his own shirt sleeves as he talked?

“Did you ever play it for her?” Harry asks quietly. He probably should be directing the question at Niall (and if he had, it would have quickly become clear by the startled look on Niall’s face that this story was as new to him as it was to Harry), but somehow he can’t stop looking at Louis.

Louis lets out a sudden bark of laughter at the memory. “She threw a pillow at him, called him a melodramatic loser, and said the next time he wrote her a song, it better have a wicked club remix.” He gives Harry another one of those small, private grins that Harry is starting to covet unreasonably, and Harry can feel himself smiling helplessly back.

“But, uh,” Louis continues, “then she cried, and Niall cried...” He slots a hesitant look at Niall, but Niall doesn’t contradict him. “And she said she would talk to a therapist, and it’s...I think she’s doing well. Niall’s absurdly proud of her, aren’t you Nialler?”

Niall looks a bit shocked to be addressed, but manages to answer Louis’ question in the affirmative. They continue to chat about the album after that, but somehow questions about rhyming structure seem a bit anticlimactic. And now Harry can’t help but notice the way Niall doesn’t _truly_ answer a single one of his questions.

Before they duck out of the Songbird again, Niall puts on his most winning smile and wheedles another Pub Night out of Harry. Harry knows his agreement sounds a little preoccupied. But he’s starting to realize that something might actually be _wrong_ here.

He wanders into the back room in a bit of a daze. Zayn is sprawled out on the ground, large headphones practically swallowing his head as he listens to something on his laptop.

“This demo’s got some promise,” he remarks idly to Harry, glancing up at his face. “They’re a new band, but--you alright?”

“I think Louis might be in trouble,” Harry blurts out. To his shock, Zayn just rolls his eyes.

“Harry, that was so weak. If you really want his number, at least put a _bit_ more effort into the excuse.”

“No, I mean it,” Harry insists, voice slow as he tries to work it out. “There’s something off between him and Niall...”

This, at least, causes Zayn to swivel up into a cross-legged sitting position, suddenly more attentive.

“You talked to Niall Horan?”

“Yeah, he was just in,” Harry tells him, distracted from Zayn’s high-pitched “ _here_?” by the memory of Louis’ expression turning more and more distant the longer Harry and Niall talked, to be replaced by something carefully, quietly, _painfully_ pleasant.

“He was too _nice_ ,” Harry says, half to himself and half to Zayn.

“Niall?” Zayn asks, taken aback. Harry shakes his head like Zayn has said something ridiculous. But then he realizes how absurd he himself must sound: _Yes, Officer, I’d like you to raid Syco’s offices. What evidence of wrongdoing? Louis Tomlinson was nice to me. Clearly the situation is dire._

“D’you think he’s jealous? Of Niall?” Harry asks, still trying to work it out. “It’s just...he seems to _hate_ every time the album gets brought up. But that doesn’t seem right. He wants my ‘Strong’ cover so badly, and talks about being trapped by Syco...”

“Louis said that?” Zayn interrupts, his eyes widening. Harry thinks back, and answers slowly.

“He said he sold his soul, and that amounts to the same thing, right? Do you think Syco is forcing him to find Niall Horan covers for some nefarious reason?”

“Nefarious? Big word,” Zayn comments lightly, but he’s gone very still in his position on the floor, like he’s thinking carefully about what he’s about to say next.

“Harry...” he begins hesitantly. “You just met one of your musical idols.”

“But this isn’t about Niall at all,” Harry protests, running his hands through his hair in frustration.

“Exactly,” Zayn points out, undeterred by Harry’s tone. “ _You have an entire notebook devoted to Niall Horan that you keep in your bedside table_ , and then you finally meet him, and all you want to talk about is Louis? Doesn’t that seem...significant to you?”

Harry flushes, but stubbornly refuses to answer. He’s not completely stupid -- he knows he has a crush. He knows that when he’s around Louis, he becomes desperate for his attention, for any small touch Louis is willing to give him, and he knows this desperation has him spinning a bit out of control. Harry knows Zayn is right, and that while he was chatting with one of his all-time favorite musicians, what was actually playing through his head was the memory of Louis Tomlinson kissing him in a grubby alley.

But that’s why he needs to _figure this out_.

“Harry,” Zayn sighs, once it’s clear from Harry’s mutinous expression that he doesn’t want to talk about it. “We both know you have a bit of a savior complex.”

“That’s not fair--” Harry starts, but Zayn just sighs again and launches wearily into a list.

“You bought a failing business, centered around a dying medium, because its previous owners had sunk their retirement savings into it. You _produce_ demos for young artists--” Zayn waggles his headphones meaningfully “--and launch them into a business that you actually hate. Then, when those young artists become famous because of _you_ , you tell them to keep your involvement a secret. When a strange kid skulked around your store for days, instead of calling the police, you gave him a job, and a place to live, and used those industry contacts -- that you never use for yourself -- to help buy him out of his label contract.”

“Syco had been terrible to you, and it wasn’t fair,” Harry says, frowning. “I wanted to help. You know I wasn’t, like, trying to get anything in return, right? It’s not being a _savior_ if it’s just the right thing to do.” Zayn gives him a small smile and tugs Harry down to share his own spot on the floor. He puts his arm around Harry shoulders, knocking their heads together and ignoring the mouthful of Harry’s hair that he’s rewarded with.

“I know that. All I meant was that you have an uncanny instinct for finding people in trouble, and...you should be careful. Not everyone wants to be rescued.” Then Zayn hesitates, twirling one of Harry’s curls pensively in his hand.

“And you think I’m only interested in him because he’s a problem to be solved,” Harry says, correctly interpreting Zayn’s uncomfortable silence. At first he feels a bit insulted, but Zayn pulls apologetically at his hair and so Harry tries to give the idea some real thought.

“I don’t know,” he finally concludes. He can sense Zayn’s disappointment in the careful withdrawal of his hand from Harry’s curls.

“Just be careful,” Zayn repeats, frowning. “Don’t hurt him too badly once you figure it out.”

“Hey, you’re _my_ friend, aren’t you supposed to use that overprotective speech to defend _me_?” Harry jokes, but he can’t help the undercurrent of hurt that laces his words. Zayn’s frown deepens; what he’s thinking about in particular, Harry can’t fathom.

All he says is: “I don’t think so. Not this time.”

 

***

 

“Alright, what the hell? What did you do to Harry?” Niall asks Louis the minute they’ve rounded the corner away from the Songbird.

“What?” asks Louis, playing innocent. “You like to meet fans.” Niall ignores him, continuing on with the rant that he’d clearly been developing for the entirety of their visit to the music shop.

“Lou, you _obviously_ dragged me there as some sort of creepy peace offering, and while I’m happy to be your human sacrifice, you didn’t even bring up the ‘Strong’ cover once!”

“What?” Louis repeats, and Niall must take it as vindication -- Louis still isn’t sure entirely of what -- because he nods sharply.

“Exactly! This isn’t about the cover at all -- you have a _crush_ on him. And you clearly feel you’ve mucked it up, so what did you do?”

“I don’t--” Louis begins to deny, but Niall fixes him with an unimpressed stare.

“You mean besides annoy and insult him every time we meet? I--” A flush rises up Louis’ cheeks. “Kissed him and ran away,” he mumbles.

Niall gives a long, low whistle at that. Louis just glares at him, as Niall takes a few moments to think.

“Did he kiss back?” Niall asks finally. Another flush steals over Louis’ face at the memory, and his eyes go out of focus a bit when he answers “yes.”

“So then what did you need me for?”

Niall suddenly stops dead in the street, fixing Louis with a look of alarm. “This isn’t, like, some weird sex thing, right? Because I’m up for being a peace offering _metaphorically_ , but...”

“Jesus, Niall, no.” Louis can’t help the giggle that spills out of him at the expression on Niall’s face. Niall reluctantly starts walking again.

“I don’t judge, mind. Just leave _me_ out of your kinks, and it’s all good.”

“Shut up.” Louis shoves at him playfully. “Harry really admires you, he thinks your album was brilliant. I was just trying to do something nice.” And now Niall’s unimpressed look is back. Louis decides he prefers the panic.

“He doesn’t admire _me_ , didn’t you hear all those questions? And the fact that I couldn’t answer a single one of them? He admires _you_. So we’re back to the question of what you need me for? If you like him, why aren’t you just telling him the truth?”

“Right,” Louis scoffs. “Tell a guy who despises Syco -- and isn’t exactly fond of me either, by the way -- all about the secret, diabolical Syco scheme that I’m at the center of. And then just _hope_ he doesn’t do something that will ruin your whole career. Sounds like a great plan, mate.”

Niall shakes his head. “You have to trust someone eventually. And there’s only so long I’ll go on playing the Cyrano to your Bergerac. Just so you know.”

“Oooh, look at you with the posh literary references,” Louis teases, and the rest of their conversation devolves into a scuffle in the middle of the road.

It makes them quite late arriving back at the studio, and Louis winces when they push open the doors to find Liam installed in one of the lobby chairs.

“Glad to know you haven’t forgotten the address,” Liam says mildly, fixing Louis with his best Disappointed Parent stare. Niall takes one look at the silent battle starting between Louis and Liam, and promptly melts into thin air like a poltergeist.

“We were meant to have a meeting at 1pm to talk about Ariana Grande’s single. It’s 1:45.”

Louis flushes. He thinks about the page in his songwriting notebook with “Ariana” written on the top and absolutely nothing else written underneath.

“I’m really sorry, Liam, I must’ve forgot,” Louis says. It’s only half a lie, but he’s still unable to properly meet Liam’s eyes. “Can we reschedule?”

Liam squints up at his face, frowning slightly. “You can’t do it now?”

Louis can feel a flush crawling up his cheeks, and he concentrates intently on scuffing his Vans against the flawlessly polished lobby floor.

“Er. I have another meeting this afternoon.”

Liam’s frown deepens, but Liam doesn’t call him on the obvious lie, just nods and stands up from the lobby chair to walk with Louis toward the lifts. They’re both silent in the lift, and as Liam starts to turn down the opposite corridor, Louis breathes a sigh of relief. Until Liam turns around abruptly, grabs Louis’ arm, and fixes him with an intent stare.

“It’s OK if it starts out shit, Lou. We can fix it together. Just put _something_ on the page. I know you can.”

The tone of his voice is all faith mixed with slight concern, and Louis can’t do anything but nod miserably and flee to their office as soon as Liam drops his arm.

He spends the rest of the afternoon listening to Ariana’s latest album, forcing himself to write upbeat lines about dancing with an anonymous lover in a club, and crumpling up the pages every time that anonymous person solidifies into someone with green eyes and ridiculous curls.

 

***

 

True to his word to Harry, Niall sets up another pub night almost immediately. He acquires Harry and Zayn’s phone numbers with startling rapidity, and creates the world’s most annoying group chat to coordinate plans. He spams them all with messages constantly -- location suggestions, garbled memories of his favorite pints, random thoughts that pass through his mind -- until Louis starts imitating him with sarcastic 3am messages like “ugly baby on the telly just now. seemed important to mention.” Liam finally snaps and texts “SUM OF US HAVE REEL WORK TO DO,” at which point it becomes clear that both Louis and Niall have been subtly winding him up the whole time.

Harry and Zayn mostly stay out of it at first, still unsure about how they fit in with the others. Harry tries desperately to suppress the fact that it’s Louis’ texts that _always_ make him laugh the hardest, usually still grinning as he forgets not to intervene and instinctively dashes off some response like, “there are no ugly babies, only ugly souls.”

He also ignores the way Louis always answers immediately, and Harry can almost _hear_ the delighted, teasing tone in his voice as he runs with whatever opening Harry has just given him.

“Ugh can’t you get a separate chat?” Niall finally texts, and it’s not like Harry and Louis have been _totally_ dominating the group chat, except...Harry scrolls back through, a little alarmed at how many of the most recent messages are between him and Louis.

“Or a room?” Zayn offers, in one of his first written contributions to the group. Niall instantly responds with an applause emoji. Harry calmly puts down his phone and stalks off to murder Zayn in person.

And it’s not like Harry was _unaware_ of the fact that this group texting situation means that he has Louis’ number, and Louis has his. But something about Zayn’s initial words of caution have prevented Harry from actually using it until now, sticking with the safely public group texting option. Now, part of him waits to see if Louis will take the bait and start messaging him privately.

Louis sends a string of angry emojis to the group chat, but his messages fall off in frequency after that. He doesn’t text Harry, the moment passes, and Harry ignores the sharp swoop of disappointment that fills his lungs at that fact.

Finally, on a Tuesday a few weeks after the start of the group chat, Niall sends a series of excited messages: “I WON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER THIS TIME. FUCK WHATEVER ELSE IS ON YOUR SCHEDULES. ALL YOU BASTARDS BETTER BE HERE ON THURSDAY.” And then a link to a karaoke bar that has half-price pints and nachos on Thursday nights.

Although much of Niall’s rock star mystique had worn off after the last several times they were treated to extended meditations on beer label designs, Harry and Zayn still need a moment to freak out to each other, in the privacy of the Songbird’s back room, about seeing Niall Horan sing live. They stand over each others’ phones, breathlessly composing laid-back responses like “Sounds fun!” (Harry’s) and “cool” (Zayn’s). They’re both quite proud of the results.

At least until Harry pushes open the door to the karaoke bar that Thursday night, Zayn so close behind that he’s tripping on Harry’s heels, to find a pleasantly crowded pub, a singer demolishing an Adele cover, and Louis Tomlinson smirking up at him. Harry guides Zayn toward the table where Louis, Liam, and Niall are already sitting, and the brief clench of Zayn’s hand on Harry’s arm when he spots Niall only makes Louis grin wider.

“‘Sounds fun?’ ‘Cool?’” Louis waves his phone at them. “How long did those take you to write? Five hours?”

“Shut up,” Harry says. He can already feel his face flushing under Louis’ knowing blue eyes. “Those are totally normal texts.”

“False,” Louis announces cheerfully, already shuffling over to make more room for Harry on his side of the table. “Yours only had one exclamation mark. Dead giveaway, that. And Zayn bothered to answer at all, so. Neither of you are as smooth as you think you are.”

“Fuck off, Tommo,” Zayn says pleasantly, even as his eyes are still riveted on Niall. At the unfamiliar voice, Niall looks up, breaks off his conversation with Liam, and bounds to his feet.

“Harry!” he cheers, wrapping Harry up in a quick, exuberant hug. “And you’re Zayn? Nice to finally meet you, mate, I’m Niall.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, amused. He doesn’t come right out and say “Of course I know who you are,” but Harry knows it's a close thing. Niall hugs him as well, and Zayn looks a little overwhelmed.

“Harry and Zayn were just telling me how excited they are to hear you sing, Nialler,” Louis says, eyes twinkling up at them. Zayn gives him a warning glare over Niall’s shoulder.

“Me?” Niall asks, releasing Zayn to shoot Louis a confused look. “How come -- oh.” Niall goes a surprising shade of pink, but he’s grinning nevertheless.

“Maybe we can sing together, yeah?” Niall offers, dragging Zayn down into a seat next to him. “Soon as me’n Lou do our duet.”

“Your duet?” Harry can’t help but ask, sliding in next to Louis. “What are you going to sing?”

“Guess you’ll just have to wait and see, eh, Harold?” Louis answers, giving him a broad wink.

“Oh. Erm, my name’s actually just Harry?”

“I wouldn’t describe you as ‘just’ anything,” Louis teases, nudging a warm elbow into Harry’s side. “...Harold.” He rolls the syllables of the name off his tongue with relish, and Harry can feel the flush that rises to his cheeks. He can’t stop looking at the way Louis’ eyes have darkened, the sudden intensity to his stare making Harry’s mouth go dry. _Harold it is_.

At the other end of the table, Niall and Zayn are clearly delighted with each other, having launched into an argument about the best karaoke duets, with Liam laughing and offering occasional suggestions that they both scoff at. Harry catches Louis watching the conversation across from them with a warm crinkle to his eyes, and he wonders if Louis’ earlier teasing had another purpose besides pure mischief. Louis notices Harry’s look, and flushes.

“Zayn’s been hanging back in the group text,” Louis says quietly to Harry over the opening bars of an oddly earnest rendition of ‘Party in the U.S.A.’ “And I know we’re not exactly your favorite crowd.” He makes a gesture that encompasses him, Liam, and Niall. It takes Harry a few moments to catch on to what Louis means. Right. They’re all technically part of Simon Cowell’s Evil Empire, and Harry hasn’t exactly made his feelings on that subject a secret.

Although it’s very hard to hate a person who’s just spent ten full minutes trying to convince the table to sing “When you Believe” from _Prince of Egypt_ (Liam), or who starts banging on the table and chanting “Li-on King” until other patrons start glaring (Niall).

Even after knowing Liam, Niall, and Louis for half-a-second, Harry already can’t imagine any of them involved in something unethical. He can’t imagine that Louis _truly_ intended anything bad to happen to Harry’s cover if he brought it to Syco, even though Harry himself might know better.

As Harry thinks, Louis starts worrying at his lip, his eyes sliding away from Harry’s. He’s already been privy to a good number of Louis’ expressions, even in four brief meetings, but insecurity is a new one. It makes something in Harry’s chest go a bit wobbly, and he’s panicked enough to blurt out the first thing that comes into his mind.

“Zayn and I once put a curse on you,” Harry says, and then internally winces. That wasn’t _at all_ what he’d meant to open with. Louis gets a funny expression on his face, one that Harry can’t parse.

“A what?”

“Well, not _you_ specifically. But Syco. We were...erm...quite drunk, and we burned kitchen herbs in my wok and chanted Harry Potter incantations until the smoke alarm went off.”

The look on Louis’ face intensifies, his lips pressing together like he’s desperately holding something back, but his voice when he answers is carefully controlled.

“Reckon it worked?”

“Well...no,” Harry falters. “But magic is all about intentionality, right? And I feel quite guilty about it now, so I just wanted to apologize before our friendship goes any further. I wouldn’t have cursed you if I really knew you,” Harry finishes solemnly.

And that’s when Louis loses it completely, bursting into laughter that doesn’t stop until there are tears in his eyes and a pout on Harry’s face.

“That might be the best apology I’ve ever gotten, Curly, thank you,” Louis wheezes.

“It was serious,” Harry mumbles, unable to suppress a small, offended frown. “I think you’re great, you know.”

Louis abruptly stops laughing at that. Harry watches the cautious way Louis’ eyes light up, and tries to pretend that his comment applied to a general, Liam/Niall/Louis “you,” rather than to someone all-too-specific. Louis’ arm is a solid weight against his on the table, and Harry wonders what it would feel like to slip his hand under the fabric of Louis’ sleeve and touch his skin properly. But Harry suppresses any and all thoughts of his fingers tracing the veins of Louis’ wrist, and instead gives Louis a sheepish shrug.

“Well I think you’re pretty wonderful, yourself,” Louis tells him, eyes crinkling at the edges. Harry feels warm all over from the way Louis is looking at him now: with hints of a teasing fondness that make Harry want to push back and surrender all at once. He can’t stop the force of his own smile, bursting across his face in a truly embarrassing show of surprised delight.

“Yeah?” Harry asks quietly, probably too quietly for Louis to actually hear him in the overcrowded pub, but Louis’ crooked grin feels like an answer anyway.

“ _Louuu_ ,” Niall’s loud whine crashes through the odd atmosphere they’d somehow created around themselves. The interruption is followed by Niall himself, barreling into Louis’ shoulder and flinging his arms around Louis’ neck.

“They’re calling us up, Louis, come on!” Louis puts an arm around Niall automatically to steady him, but his eyes don’t leave Harry’s until Niall starts dragging him toward the stage.

It turns out that Louis and Niall’s duet is “I Want it that Way.” They’ve clearly sung it together before, from the way they exchange verses and soulful stares, by turns serenading each other and chasing each other across the stage to fall to their knees in unbridled passion. They finish with Niall jumping into Louis’ arms and Louis carrying him bridal-style back to their table to raucous applause.

“And they say romance is dead,” Niall says before planting a sloppy kiss on Louis’ cheek. Louis squawks and retaliates by putting him in a headlock.

Harry still feels a little dazed from the performance. For one thing, _Niall Horan_ just sang ‘90s pop to a crowd of people utterly oblivious to his identity, which is already a bit surreal. But if Harry is being honest with himself, he’d barely noticed Niall was there at all. His attention had been drawn too inexorably to Louis, to his buoyant voice and larger-than-life movements. Niall may be the professional singer, but Louis had utterly  _owned_ the stage.

“Not sure that’s the most romantic song,” Harry finally brings himself to say slowly.

“It is when Nick Carter prompted your sexual awakening. Isn’t that right, Lou?” Niall says, possibly in revenge for the headlock.

“Why do I tell you anything?” Louis groans, thunking his head on the table, but Niall just cackles back.

Niall drags Zayn off to help him carry another round for the table, and Liam has wandered up to the stage to sign up for his own turn at karaoke, and for a brief moment, Harry finds himself alone at the table with Louis. He’s still flushed with adrenaline from his and Niall’s song, a small smile on his lips, and his carefully styled fringe is in a hopeless sort of disorder. Harry watches as Louis absent-mindedly pulls Liam’s drink toward him and takes a sip. _He’s such an odd person,_ Harry thinks, as Louis hum along to the Fleetwood Mac cover that’s currently being performed. What do you make of a person who’s so good at breaking down other people’s boundaries, while leaving his own walls frustratingly intact?

Louis must sense the weight of Harry’s stare, because he gives Harry a sidelong glance and a smile.

“Hey, I meant to say--” Louis starts. Drops his eyes back to the table. Fiddles with Liam’s pint glass. Looks back up at Harry again, with a hesitance to his expression that hadn’t been there before. “I’m sorry, too. For when we met, and not respecting your, like, confidentiality policies, or whatever.”

Harry blinks at him, baffled as to what Louis is referencing. Louis sighs, and his fiddling gets a bit twitchier.

“The ‘Strong’ cover. You thought I’d do something bad with it. And I get why you have to be careful with what people entrust to you, and it’s not like you have to believe me, but. Just. I wouldn’t have given it to anyone else. I wanted you to know that,” Louis finishes quietly.

As often happens with Louis, Harry can hear the weight of several things he _isn’t_ saying weaving through the comparatively simple statement. And as usual, Harry hasn’t a clue what those hidden messages might be. Louis is looking back down at the table, frowning slightly, his eyelashes casting shadows along the ridges of his face. He’s all sharp lines and soft skin, and he suddenly looks fragile. That was not an adjective Harry would have used to describe Louis Tomlinson until this moment. It’s something about the tense way he’s holding himself, though. It suggests he’s one gentle push away from coming apart at the seams. Harry wants to cuddle into him, to press his nose into Louis’ neck and tell him again that he’s wonderful. From the way Louis is carrying himself now -- spiky-shouldered and clearly in need of comfort -- Harry thinks Louis might actually let him do it.

“I won’t even ask about it again, Haz, it’s not important,” Louis blurts out, like he’s afraid he’ll stop talking otherwise. Harry gets the distinct sense that Louis is circling around to some sort of larger point, and he instinctively nudges against Louis’ side to soothe him into saying it, but Louis falters.

“It’s alright,” Harry says quietly, and swallows. He suddenly wishes he had an admission to give to Louis instead. He wonders briefly about telling him the truth about the cover, but then he’d have to explain about Zayn, and why Harry hadn’t just admitted to it in the first place, and that all feels a bit too weighty for a cramped karaoke bar, with Niall and Zayn already heading back to their table and two girls in snapbacks singing a jaunty rendition of ‘500 Miles’ on the stage. So Harry offers him what he can:

“I actually looked for it, you know. After you left? Still can’t remember the singer, so I’m not having much luck. But I’ll find it, Lou, I promise.” Harry knows his voice sounds oddly earnest, but he hopes that for once, Louis can hear what _Harry_ isn’t saying, the real promise he’s making: _I’ll tell you. Soon, I’ll tell you_.

It’s not like he expects Louis to burst into happy tears at Harry’s concession, but Louis’ reaction still completely blindsides him. He shoots his head up to give Harry a long, piercing stare, and Harry can almost see the walls being rebuilt behind his eyes. He watches as Louis’ body reconstructs itself into something hard and solid.

“Oh. Thanks,” Louis says, and his tone carries only one, flat layer.

Niall and Zayn reappear then, their loose laughter and the clinking of new glasses breaking the tension that had abruptly settled over Harry and Louis. Louis turns deliberately away from Harry to join in, tweaking Niall’s ears until Niall slaps his hand away and telling jokes that make Zayn’s mouth widen with laughter. Harry tries desperately not to pout his way through another pint, munching desolately on a plate of nachos that Zayn and Niall had carried back to their table.

He feels unfairly abandoned by Louis somehow, not to mention annoyed that Louis has once again proven too evasive for Harry to make sense of. Harry doesn’t often have so much trouble reading people, or getting them to trust him. There’s something deeply frustrating about the way Louis dances cheerfully out of his reach at every turn, resisting Harry’s attempts to piece him together.

Perhaps Zayn’s right, Harry thinks, that he’s captivated by Louis because he’s a puzzle that Harry can’t solve.

Louis bursts into sudden laughter beside him at something Zayn had said, a loud, bright peal that cuts through the noise of the bar, filling Harry’s ears with the ringing of bells. His eyes are squeezed shut, crinkling as they do when he’s unabashedly happy, and Harry wonders what the delicate skin at the corner of his eye would taste like under Harry’s mouth.

Alright, so perhaps he’s just captivated by Louis, full stop.

Harry is so busy watching Louis that he almost misses Liam tripping onto stage, smiling shyly, and launching into a rendition of Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’ that’s really quite impressive. He comes back to the table a few moments later, breathless and pink-cheeked at the raucous applause the four of them had sent up the moment his song ended.

“Thanks lads,” Liam beams, goes to take a drink of his pint, and frowns at the fact that it’s half-gone. “Thanks, Lou,” he adds somewhat sourly, and Louis puckers his lips at him from across the table.

“Who’s next, then? Harry?” Niall asks, glancing around the table, and Louis turns bright, interested eyes on him. Harry chokes on his beer. Louis is going to recognize his voice _immediately_. How had he thought he’d get away with lying about music at a _karaoke bar_ with a _professional musician_? And now that Louis is actually _looking_ at him again, Harry can’t--he can't--

“I can’t sing,” he blurts out desperately. It’s not technically a lie. Right now, at this moment, he certainly can’t.

The reactions to his confession vary around the table: Liam assures him that he can’t be that bad, Niall insists that it’s only for fun anyway, and Zayn’s mouth has popped open in shock. Louis is quiet beside him, and somehow that’s what makes Harry panic more. Louis knows. _Of course he knows, I can’t lie for shit._

“I--” he begins, intending to barrel through a bluff as best he can, but to his horror, the words aren’t coming out and he’s suddenly gasping for air that won’t come. There’s a clamor going on around him, the anxious faces of his friends swimming into view, but Harry can’t make out any individual words, until:

“Breathe with me, Haz.” Louis’ voice cuts through the strands of Harry’s panic like scissors through a knot, and Harry feels Louis’ hands warm on his, pulling his palm forward to rest against Louis’ own ribs. “Feel me breathe, nice and slow. You’re doing great, love.”

Almost unconsciously, Harry matches up his breaths with the gentle rise and fall of Louis’ chest, focusing on the soft material of his jumper and the way his posture is radiating calm. When Harry’s panic clears enough for him to make out details, he sees that Louis is smiling kindly at him, even though his eyes remain worried.

The other three boys look equally alarmed, as Harry realizes once he has the presence of mind to glance around himself. He flushes, embarrassed by how spectacularly he’d just made an arse of himself.

“I get, um...stage fright,” Harry mumbles, ducking his head and conveniently forgetting to mention that while he _has_ gotten panic attacks from stage fright in the past, he’d mostly grown out of them by the time he turned sixteen. Zayn, who is perfectly aware of this information, is mercifully quiet about it.

“Harry doesn’t have to sing. Don’t pressure him,” Louis says sharply, gathering Harry protectively against his side and glaring at Niall and Liam, who have identical expressions of wide-eyed apology on their faces. Harry chuckles a little wetly at the sight.

“It’s alright--” he begins, but Louis cuts him off with a cuddle that manages to be both aggressive and oddly soothing at the same time.

There’s a moment of quiet where Harry melts into Louis’ shoulder, and Louis runs a soft palm up and down the curve of his bicep while giving the other three boys quelling looks.

Finally Zayn coughs to break the silence.

“I’ll sing, then. I’m not afraid,” he announces, a sharpness to his tone that Harry knows is meant for him. Louis must catch it too, because his hand stutters against Harry’s arm and he frowns at Zayn, although Harry is well aware that he deserves every passive-aggressive comment Zayn chooses to throw at him. But instead, Zayn just rolls his eyes and slides out of his chair to put himself on the list.

He smashes a rendition of Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are,” and by the time he returns to their table, Harry has reluctantly detached himself from Louis’ side, Louis’ arm unconsciously tightening around his shoulder before letting him go.

Louis is unexpectedly gentle with Harry for the rest of the evening. It’s nothing explicit, or even particularly verbal, and if someone asked Harry to explain, he’s not sure he could even articulate the change. Louis doesn’t make any reference to the Harry’s stage fright for the rest of the evening, but neither does he scoot his chair back to its original place further away from Harry’s side. He teases Liam about a girl at work who fancies him, and makes faces at Zayn about the next few singers’ abuses of Madonna, but all throughout these conversations, he’s constantly fidgeting in his seat so that some part of him is always touching Harry. It’s just a whisper of a jumper as he leans forward across the table, the jab of an elbow when his stories get too enthusiastic, the light tap of their knees together under the table, but the sum of these tiny gestures telegraphs comfort. Louis’ eyes keep flickering over to him as well, gaze sharp and slightly narrowed like he’s cataloguing details. Counting breaths. Louis brings back a glass of water on his next drink run that he edges steadily into Harry’s space, and when Harry tries to give it back, says “what’re you doing, that’s yours,” with such genuine puzzlement that Harry can’t think of any other course of action but to drink it.

It’s all so subtle and natural that Harry wonders if Louis even notices it himself. Rather, Harry suspects that care for others is something Louis incorporates into his own life rhythms subconsciously, his attention scattered enough between himself and the people around him that he sometimes forgets the difference.

It makes Harry feel terrible. He doesn’t think he’s lied as many times in the rest of his _life_ as he’s lied to Louis. And at this point, Harry’s not even sure what he’s lying for. He’d already been planning to tell Louis the truth about the “Strong” cover, after all, he’d just needed a little time to think it through. To make sure he’s not letting his feelings overpower his judgment the way they always seem to do. And instead, he’s only managed to dig himself deeper into a lie he doesn’t even want to be telling.

Harry is so focused on Louis and his own inner conflict that he almost misses Niall announcing, “time for someone else to embarrass themselves” before bouncing off to sign up for another karaoke song. But it’s certainly a surprise to everyone at the table when “Louis Tomlinson” is the name that’s introduced over the pub loudspeaker.

“Said someone had to embarrass themselves, didn’t say it had to be me,” Niall tells them all complacently, shooing Louis out of his seat. Louis’ eyes have narrowed, and he and Niall seem to be having one of those silent arguments that Harry’s gotten so used to seeing.

When the opening guitar bars of “Ready to Run” float through the room, Harry thinks he understands Niall’s smug expression. Niall must be taking the piss out of Louis somehow, forcing him to sing one of Niall’s songs.

Until Louis opens his mouth, and Harry forgets about Niall completely.

He starts the song out quietly, holding the microphone in a careless grip and frowning down at his shoes, the bright stage spotlight accentuating the sweep of his eyelashes so that most of the details of expression are in shadow. He would almost look bored, if not for the tautness of his shoulders and the way his breath snags on each inhale.

Harry has already heard Louis sing once tonight, but it could as easily have been a completely different person. That booming, laughter-filled Backstreet Boys performance bears almost no resemblance to this -- earnest, stripped-down, with emotion crackling through every note. Where before Louis was bouncing around and engaging cheekily with the audience, now he’s standing center stage, balancing unsteadily on the balls of his feet and pressing his hand against his stomach like he’s tamped something down deep in his core that’s only now threatening to break free. His voice has a haunting, raspy quality that settles the song’s promises of freedom into Harry’s bones.

Harry has the abrupt, inexplicable sensation that Niall’s version has been the cover all along.

Harry’s so enthralled by Louis, golden under the stage lights, that he doesn’t realize until the song is almost over that Louis’ eyes have opened, and he’s staring straight at Harry. There’s almost a question in his eyes -- a question that Harry doesn’t have the words for, but is desperate to answer nonetheless.

“What the hell was that,” he breathes over the pub’s swell of applause, not realizing he’s spoken out loud until he hears the answer.

“The real deal,” Niall answers cryptically, and when Harry turns to him, his face is uncharacteristically solemn. But then Louis is stalking back to their table and cuffing Niall on the back of the head. Niall’s poker face morphs instantly into a grin, and Harry doesn’t have the chance to ask Niall what he’d meant.

Louis doesn’t say anything to Harry as he slides into the booth next to him, and as usual, the light brushes of his arm against Harry’s can be written off as accidental. But he does shoot Harry another one of those carefully questioning looks, similar to the one he’d worn on stage just a few minutes ago, only smaller and quieter now that he’s no longer lit up by a spotlight.

Harry opens his mouth, fully prepared to say “yes,” to spill the truth about his singing, to plumb the depths of every secret he’s ever kept.

But then Niall is laughing gleefully.

“Couldn’t have sung it better meself, Lou,” Niall cackles, holding his fist out for Louis to bump.

“Oh, shut up,” Louis retorts, but his eyes are crinkling into a smile, and it’s like the volume in the pub has un-muted itself all at once.

Harry closes his mouth.

 

***

 

They’re on their way home from karaoke, the five of them walking to the nearest Tube station. Harry and Zayn are farther ahead on the pavement, their heads bent together as they discuss something quietly. Which gives Louis the chance to pounce on Niall undetected.

Literally and figuratively.

“That trick with the music wasn’t subtle, you know,” Louis says in a low voice as he digs sharp fingers into what he knows is Niall’s most ticklish spot. Niall makes a surprised sound, like a gargling pigeon, and manages to twist away.

“Subtlety is overrated!” Niall claims, cheerful now that he’s escaped from Louis’ grasp. “Subtlety hasn’t done shit for you so far.”

“Well, it wasn’t very kind to put Lou on the spot...” Liam begins, shooting a worried glance at Louis.

“Yeah, but did it work? That’s the important question,” Niall retorts. Liam frowns harder, but Louis breaks up the oncoming conflict by slinging one arm around each of their necks.

“Still, ‘Ready to Run,’ Nialler? Bit on the nose, doncha think?”

Niall’s answering smile is positively demonic, before it morphs into an expression of exaggerated innocence.

“ _Oh_ , you think that song had something to do with _you_? How interesting.”

Louis is already regretting his rookie mistake, even before Niall continues gleefully.

“What’s the part that spoke to you, Lou? Falling in love? _Trusting_ someone when you feel trapped?”

“You’re the worst,” Louis announces, and dives for Niall’s ticklish spot again. Unfortunately for all of them, he’s still got one arm around Liam’s shoulders, and the three of them go toppling over with a shout. The noise causes Zayn and Harry to spin around, and while Zayn takes one look at the three of them on the ground and immediately starts laughing, Harry doubles back to help them, only allowing a small smirk to show on his face. The hand that pulls Louis to his feet is warm and large, and something about the touch sparks the memory of Harry’s hands sliding down his back as they kissed in an alley.

Louis makes a small choking noise and stumbles out of Harry’s grip.

 _Off limits_ , Louis reminds himself. Harry is off limits. He may be unfairly beautiful. He may have silly tattoos and _stupidly_ long legs, and a ridiculous habit of fluffing his own hair for no reason. He may duck his head to hide his smile when he’s about to say something devastatingly funny, and get stars in his eyes when Louis sings, and curl himself instinctively into Louis’ side like his body was made to fit, and apologize earnestly for casting Harry Potter spells on strangers.

But if Zayn is correct, Harry also doesn’t trust Louis with the singer of the ‘Strong’ cover, not even now. Louis was actually grateful to hear Harry lie about it again tonight. With Harry turning that radiant expression on him all through karaoke, it had been too easy to believe that if Louis told Harry the truth, it might all be OK. Too easy to believe in Harry’s hopeful words in the alley weeks ago, holding out the promise of a rescue that Louis _knows_ is impossible. Too easy to believe that if Harry was the only other person in the world who knew about his album, maybe Louis could live with all the rest.

He needs to remember that revealing the real songwriter of that album will only harm everyone it touches. Harry, who loves Niall’s music and who would be devastated to lose it. Niall, whose career would be jeopardized by any whisper of the truth. And Louis, who finds that he can’t bear even the _chance_ of Harry hating him.

So. Harry is off limits.

“Lou, did you hear what Niall suggested?” Harry bounces up to Louis’ side and links their arms together like they’re old childhood friends. Louis shoots Niall a questioning glance.

“We should make karaoke a weekly tradition. The five of us,” Niall explains, giving Louis a wink and mouthing _you’re welcome_.

“Harry doesn’t even like to sing,” Louis offers weakly. _Off limits_.

“I don’t mind,” Harry says cheerfully. “I can always be a backup dancer, anyway.”

And with Harry pressed into his side, practically glowing with excitement, Louis finds all of his carefully constructed boundaries crumbling.

“Hang on, I have a very strict audition process for my backup dancers,” he can’t help but tease, poking Harry in the ribs.

“And you think I don’t have what it takes?” Harry gives him a mock-scandalized look. He slips out of Louis’ arm and very seriously launches into what Louis thinks might’ve originally been the choreography for “Single Ladies,” except Harry gets confused halfway through and tries to recover with a series of pirouettes and then, inexplicably, the Moonwalk. He ends with an attempt at the splits that sends him toppling over instantly, before mouthing “call me” to Louis from where he’s sprawled out on the pavement.

Zayn and Niall are giggling, Liam’s mouth has dropped open, and Louis...Louis might just be in love.


	3. Chapter 3

_To: Louis Tomlinson (sent 3:04pm)  
_ hi! seems niall is serious about this karaoke tradition...watching him sing last week was so surreal!!! quite a dream come true. but you must be used to it

_To: Louis Tomlinson (sent 3:05pm)  
_ this is harry btw

_To: Louis Tomlinson (sent 3:12pm)  
_ from the songbird?

_To: Louis Tomlinson (sent 3:31pm)  
_ i got your number from the group chat. I promise i’m not a stalker

_To: Louis Tomlinson (sent 3:37pm)  
_ tho i guess that’s what a stalker would say

__  
To: Harry (sent 4:01pm)  
hi, and no problem!!!

_To: Harry (sent 4:02pm)_  
and this is louis btw ;)  
  


“Zayn! Winky faces are flirty, right?”

“I’m helping a customer right now.”

“But--”

“Christ, _yes_. Winky faces are flirty! Sorry about that, sir...”  
  


_To: Louis Tomlinson (sent 4:04pm)_  
would you like to get dinner with me tonight?  
  


“Shit! Zayn! How do you unsend texts? It’s an emergency!”

“Go away, Harry.”  
  


_To: Harry (sent 5:48pm)_  
sure, yeah. Around 7?  
  


“Oh god, do you think it’s a bad sign if someone takes ages to respond?”  
  


_To: Louis Tomlinson (sent 5:49pm)  
_ yes!

_To: Louis Tomlinson (sent 5:49pm)_  
sorry hand slipped, that wasn’t meant to have punctuation  
  


_To: Harry (sent 5:49pm)_  
alright harold, that’s the story we’ll stick with for now ;)  
  


“This bloke must _really_ like you. Because your side of these texts is a total train wreck.”

“Nobody asked you, Martin!”

“Mate, I just came in for a Led Zeppelin album. I never wanted to be a part of this.”

 

***

 

Once again, Louis has somehow managed to work himself into proper panic over Harry. He’s already called Liam, hung up on Liam, and then called Liam back. Twice.

“I don’t even know why you’re worried. I thought you didn’t like Hipster Harry. I thought he was _off limits_ ,” Liam tells him over the phone, clearly very smug about the whole situation.

“He’s not a hipster,” Louis says, trying to hold the phone and put on trousers at the same time. “I don’t think.”

“ _You’re_ the one who called him that,” Liam reminds him. “‘ _ipstah ‘Arreh was propah rude, Liam_ ,” he adds in an exaggerated imitation of Louis’ Yorkshire accent.

“That was atrocious,” Louis sniffs.

“So you _don’t_ think he fills mason jars with the tears of children who listened to Katy Perry unironically? Because that’s not what you said--”

“I hate you,” Louis informs him. “And it’s not like I even talk about him that much. I _don’t_!” he insists over the sound of Liam’s hysterical laughter.

So Louis does the only possible thing, and hangs up on Liam again.

Liam sends him a text that says “your brilliant so dont worry, deep breths” and then three heart emojis. It’s enough to get him out the door, at least, and that’s what matters.

Louis slides into the restaurant fifteen minutes late, already prepared with a hilarious rant about the Central Line trains. But the smile that bursts over Harry’s face when he looks up causes Louis to stutter to a halt about five feet from the table, all ability to form words leaving his body in a little wheeze. Louis realizes now that instead of spending his train ride composing silly stories, he should have spent it preparing emotionally for the sight of Harry Styles in a perfectly fitted silk shirt, sleeves pushed messily up to his elbows, hair curling around his ears like a caress. But perhaps that would have been an impossible task anyway.

“Hi,” Louis says stupidly, still waiting for his brain to come fully back on-line. He realizes he’s actually done a silly little wave, and winces internally.

“Hello,” Harry says in his characteristic slow drawl, his smile growing, if possible, even wider. He has dimples, Louis notices with a start, and then wonders how he could’ve possibly missed them before.

Louis tumbles into his seat and picks up the menu for something to do with his hands, fiddling nervously with the pages. Harry is quiet across from him. Louis tries to muster up the courage to actually look at him and converse like a fucking adult, but he was not _ready_ for dimples, and they’ve thrown his entire first date routine into chaos.

_Wait, shit -- is this even a date?_ Louis suddenly panics, running through their text conversation again in his head: Harry’d said something about Niall, and then followed it up with a dinner invitation. Was this all just a very polite thank-you for introducing them? Like, it’s not as though Louis has been bringing out his most impressive seduction skills during their encounters...So far, his moves have been restricted to: be aggressively weird and then atone for it with famous friends.

So yeah, this is definitely about Niall.

Maybe Harry even has a thing for Niall, and this whole dinner is some super-subtle way of pumping Louis for information? Louis had considered that possibility when he decided to introduce them. The adoring eyes that Harry gets at even the _slightest_ mention of Niall definitely suggests a bit of a crush.

But. Well.

Harry has _dimples_. And he still hasn’t said a word. So Louis decides to press in the hopes of finding out for sure.

“So did you enjoy meeting him?” Louis asks, keeping his voice light and fiddling with the edge of the tablecloth. He looks up just in time to see Harry glance away from his face, eyes a little unfocused.

“What? Who?” Harry asks, blinking a few times. And then, bafflingly, like he’s imparting a deep secret, he leans close and adds: “This restaurant has very nice pasta.”

Louis can’t help but let out a burst of laughter at that.

“Harry. It’s an Italian restaurant. Of course they have pasta.”

Harry shrugs, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “But is it _very nice_ pasta? There’s a difference.”

Louis closes his menu with a snap and turns to the waiter who has just appeared at their table, grandly ordering “your finest pasta for my mate Mario Batali.”

Harry tries to place a drink order for real, but he can’t get through it with a straight face, his dimple back in full force and his eyes bright like he actually finds Louis’ lame jokes delightful. Something wobbles in Louis’ chest. He wants to put himself back on even ground, before this whole thing gets completely out of control, so after the waiter leaves, Louis forces himself back to his earlier topic.

“I know Niall can seem a bit ridiculous when you first meet him, but he’s alright. And he really likes meeting people,” Louis rushes to add. “Like, people who listen to his music. And he thought _you_ were brilliant--”

“Really?” Harry interrupts, face shining like Louis had just handed him the stars. “He said that about me?”

Louis feels the fizzle in his chest turn to something heavy.

“Y-yeah,” he says, forcing his voice into the semblance of a normal tone. “You’ll both get along great. And I know I made the introduction, but don’t feel like, _obligated_ \--” Louis stutters to a halt, unable to come up with a non-pathetic way to phrase “I didn’t set you up with your musical idol just to get closer to you.”

Because that would be a _complete_ misrepresentation of the whole situation. Obviously.

“Oh? OK...” Harry says slowly, some of the happiness fading out of his eyes. He’s watching Louis with a very careful expression that Louis can’t fully parse.

“You did...enjoy hanging out with him, right?” Louis asks anxiously. He’d been _so_ sure when he dragged Niall into the Songbird that he’d found the perfect gift for Harry in a musician whom Harry clearly adored. Since Louis as _himself_ was clearly fucking it up so royally. It was supposed to be a _nice thing_ , but Harry’s response is a bit underwhelming.

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry rushes to say, and it’s so unconvincing that Louis can’t help but raise his eyebrows. Harry flushes.

“OK, fine,” he starts, going slowly like he’s pulling each word reluctantly from his own mouth. “ _Yes_ , if you’d told me two weeks ago that I’d be setting up _karaoke nights_ with Niall Horan, I probably would have cried, like, openly. In public. And he’s definitely really cool!”

Harry pauses, blinks at Louis for a few breathless seconds, and then finally blurts out:

“But if I had to choose, I’d rather spend the time with you.” Harry’s face is utterly red but he’s holding Louis’ gaze almost defiantly, like he’s daring Louis to react. It takes Louis a few beats to realize the full implication of what Harry’s just said, but:

“...oh,” Louis finally responds, very quietly. He must not be as brave as Harry because he stares down at the tablecloth. He swallows.

Louis looks back up to the rapid freefall of Harry’s smile, and feels another spike of panic. Without thinking, he shoots his hand across the table to grab Harry’s much larger one in his own, tangling their fingers together. Harry is biting his lips, uncertain, and Louis wants to kiss him more than anything.

“Enough about Niall, then. He’s actually a horrible diva. I didn’t want to tell you before, and ruin your illusions,” Louis announces, grinning wide. “And enough about music! Nobody wants to talk about their jobs when they’re at a posh Italian restaurant, eating _very nice pasta_.”

“What can we talk about then?” Harry asks. Louis is gratified to see a glimmer of another smile, and he squeezes Harry’s hand encouragingly.

“Anything we like,” Louis offers, waving his other arm grandly. “Football! Our favorite ice cream flavors! Where all the bees have gone! Obscene London street names -- I have a list memorized, actually. Great icebreaker at corporate events...” Harry begins to giggle at that, ducking his head like he’s trying to stifle it. And the more Harry laughs, the more absurd Louis becomes:

“The number of people you’d need to drink Loch Ness; the difference between coconut milk and coconut water--”

“I actually have a great many thoughts on coconut water,” Harry interrupts mock-seriously, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

Louis never actually regains his equilibrium after that, but somehow it ceases to matter as much. Without making the conscious decision to do so, Louis abruptly stops resisting the glow that seems to surround Harry like a halo. Louis hadn’t realized _how_ hard he’d been resisting, ever since they met, until he lets himself just...fall into it instead.

Later, Louis won’t remember much of what they said at dinner, as every other detail of that night acts more as a blurry frame for one boy in perfect focus. But Louis does remember a few crisp snapshots: Harry shaking his hair out of his face impatiently; Harry’s thumb stroking the pulse point on Louis’ wrist, just that slight movement making Louis pant for breath; Harry’s look of elaborate innocence as his fork creeps across the table to capture a piece of Louis’ penne.

“I can’t judge, since I steal drinks. Although not on purpose! Liam’s drinks just always look like mine,” Louis says in response, pushing his plate into the center of the table.

“So I steal food and you steal alcohol? Fate has brought us together,” Harry says, voice deadpan, and luckily he’s too busy decimating the remainder of Louis’ pasta to catch the odd flash of emotion that passes over Louis’ face at the idea.

He can’t help but shove into Harry’s space as they leave the restaurant, not-so-accidentally brushing their elbows together, or letting his hands linger after unnecessarily adjusting Harry’s scarf. Louis feels a bit like he’s been under a spell this evening -- Cinderella as the clock strikes midnight -- and these brief touches are basically the equivalent of clinging to Harry and begging him not break it.

But as they wait on the pavement for an empty cab, the slight chill of the outdoors turning Harry’s nose pink and causing him to burrow just as intently into Louis’ side, Louis tries to resign himself to the fact that the cab will drop Harry off at his own flat. Harry will go home, and Louis will survive.

He turns his head slightly, toward Harry shivering against him. “So you really _will_ come to Niall’s next karaoke ni--mmph!”

With a grace Louis didn’t expect Harry to possess, he spins Louis around -- righting him easily when Louis loses his balance -- and crashes their mouths together. Louis responds right away, mouth opening as he kisses Harry back with a sort of desperate intensity. The sexual tension that had been building throughout dinner, worse after each one of Harry’s sly glances and sweet smiles, is suddenly converging on every point of contact between them: lips, the brush of their chests, the firm pressure of Harry’s fingertips against his shoulders. It’s almost unbearable, but Louis can only push closer, chasing the taste of Harry.

Just as Louis makes a small sound and licks deeper into Harry’s mouth, Harry steps back. His expression is a bit dazed, mouth red and kiss-bitten, but with a hint of a smirk tugging at its corners.

“ _That_ was for ambushing me in an alley. Now we’re even,” Harry tells him, narrowing his eyes in mock sternness.

“What if I don’t want to be even?” Louis counters, raising one eyebrow and trying to conceal how unsteady the kiss has made him feel. Harry’s smirk widens, like he knows it anyway, and then he’s tugging Louis closer again by one belt loop, curling his hand purposefully around the jut of Louis’ hip. They’re almost flush against each other, Harry’s eyes darkening as he looks down at a breathless Louis, voice going low and velvety.

“Then I s’pose you’ll have to break the tie, and kiss me again,” Harry tells him slowly, and Louis feels the words fizzle straight down his spine. He can’t stop looking at Harry’s mouth, and suddenly the handful of centimeters between his body and Harry’s seems awful, excruciating, _unacceptable_.

But. Louis is a stubborn motherfucker, and so instead of a needy whine, what comes out of his mouth is:

“But if I kiss you now, see, you’ll have known it was coming. S’not in the spirit of the contest.”

“Then I s’pose I’ll just have to concede,” Harry murmurs. Right before he ducks his head down to kiss Louis again.

The question of whether they’re going home together is cleared up quite definitively by Harry gasping “yours or mine?” into Louis’ mouth as they tumble into the backseat of a cab.

“Um,” Louis says, detaching Harry gently from where he’s sucking a mark onto Louis’ jaw and trying to put at least a foot of space between them, which is the only way he’ll have a prayer of remembering his own address. The cabbie is already looking distinctly unimpressed. Luckily, Louis is able to rattle it off, just in time for Harry to crowd against him again, his hands sliding up under Louis’ shirt and making Louis shiver. The rest of the car ride is measured in dazed flashes of heat, the accumulation of Harry’s touches against his skin. Harry tugs him out the door of the cab, and Louis follows blindly, only realizing they’ve reached his building when their progress is arrested by the locked front door.

“Practice safe sex!” the driver calls after them, with all the sangfroid of a London cabbie with absolutely zero fucks to give.

“Cheers!” Louis yells back, unrepentant.

His flat is on the twelfth floor. Louis ordinarily finds the lift excruciatingly slow, but tonight, with Harry pressing into him, murmuring nonsense as he grinds their hips together, it takes an _eternity_.

They eventually make it into Louis’ flat, but stall again, almost immediately, in the hallway.

“C’mon, bed,” Louis insists, disentangling his hands from Harry’s hair to tug at his arm.

“Dunno, where?” Harry mumbles back, a bit incoherently between sloppy kisses. Harry tugs at his top and Louis shivers as one hand marks out a slow, electric path up the arch of his spine to settle between his shoulder blades. The other hand, meanwhile, is making a valiant effort to pull Louis’ top off entirely.

“What are you asking for, a grand tour?” Louis retorts breathlessly, his own hands working their way toward Harry’s bum. Harry eyes open into sarcastic slits, and suddenly he’s slipped adroitly away from Louis and is off down the hall, with Louis hampered in the chase by the fact that his shirt is still only half-over his head.

“Well you _do_ have a fascinating design scheme,” Harry laughs from the end of the hallway before darting into Louis’ kitchen. “What’s this? A _cupboard_? I have to see more.” By the time Louis arrives, Harry is busy opening drawers at random, making nonsensical comments about the “Queen Anne flourish on the silverware” until Louis traps Harry against the counter and kisses him quiet.

“It’s not like I have _objections_ to staying here,” Louis murmurs, rolling his hips against Harry’s and enjoying the strangled sigh that Harry makes in response. “Like, did you know,” he adds conversationally, reaching down between them to flick open Harry’s belt, “that I’ve never actually sucked someone off in my kitchen?” Harry’s eyes fly open at that, wide and so, so bright, and he looks on with something like awe as Louis unzips Harry’s trousers and sinks to his knees.

“Reckon there’s a first time for everything,” Louis finishes with a wink, before swallowing Harry down.

“ _Shit_ ,” he hears Harry hiss above him, and then he turns his full attention toward Harry’s cock, taking a moment to appreciate the way it rests warm and heavy in his mouth before pulling back and sucking lightly at the tip of the head. Louis feels like he’s barely started -- still trying to tease Harry a bit with light, leisurely flicks of his tongue rather than setting any real pace -- but Harry’s hand is already reaching down a bit frantically to clench at Louis’ hair. Louis can’t help but moan himself at that, already uncomfortably hard, and Harry’s soft gasps are only driving him further toward the edge.

“Bed. _Lou_ ,” Harry is saying urgently above him, already sounding completely wrecked. “God, just -- horizontal, _please_.”

“If you’re still using four-syllable words, I’m _definitely_ doing this wrong,” Louis says lightly, pulling off Harry’s cock and looking up. Harry looks like an absolute mess: his curls are in complete disarray over his face, his shirt is half-unbuttoned, eyes half-open, and there’s a deep flush rising from the tattoos on his collarbone up into his cheeks.

Louis has never seen anything more beautiful.

“How about ‘smartass,’ that’s only two,” Harry mumbles, as he tugs Louis back up to his feet and kisses him desperately, hands roaming in a confused pattern down Louis’ sides before reaching his arse and pulling their hips together with one firm tug. Louis lets out a sharp moan and grinds against him almost unthinkingly, the friction against his dick just on this side of comfortable, but _so fucking necessary_ that Louis reckons he’d rather do this than _breathe_.

“C’mon then,” Louis gasps, and then makes absolutely zero effort to go anywhere. Harry does try to walk them out of the room, but as neither of them is willing to stop the achingly slow rhythm of their hips, nor the panting kisses they’re sharing, Harry doesn’t manage to get them very far. With a half-irritated huff, he finally hoists Louis up by the bum, and as Louis is perfectly happy to wrap his legs around Harry’s hips and make a spirited attack on the hinge of Harry’s jaw instead, they do finally start moving out of the kitchen.

“OK, but I still don’t--” Harry starts, before nearly tipping them both into Louis’ bathtub.

“On the left,” Louis takes a break from nuzzling at the skin behind Harry’s ear to mumble.

“Oh thank God,” Harry says when he sees the bedroom, launching them both forward so they bounce onto the bed in a tangle of limbs. Somehow, Harry ends up above Louis, arms bracketing him on either side, body raised just high enough to have Louis chasing him upward with a little whine.

But Harry has gone still, tracing the tattoo on Louis’ chest with light, intent touches, head bowed so that Louis can’t fully see his expression.

“You’re just...you’re _amazing_ , Lou. So lovely,” Harry murmurs, and then he’s kissing Louis with a new fierceness, palm resting warm and possessive on Louis’ side before he makes a valiant effort to undo Louis’ trousers one-handed. Louis obligingly helps by kicking them off, and then, _finally,_ Harry’s hand is on his cock, and Louis is making breathy little noises that he’s sure he’ll find embarrassing later, but, right now, are completely out of his control.

“Fuck me, Harry, will you?” Louis has the vague sense that those words weren’t in the correct order, but Harry seems to get the idea, because his hand stutters to a halt and with a quiet “ _Christ_ ,” he rests his forehead against Louis’.

This is all the answer Louis needs to reach into his bedside table, pull out lube and a condom, and then roll invitingly onto his stomach.

Instead of making the expected teasing comment -- probably something about patience, Louis imagines -- Harry is quiet as he traces the swell of Louis’ bum with deliberate hands, ghosting across Louis’ hole until Louis whines with a combination of arousal and frustration. Louis’ desperate sound is the impetus that prompts Harry to slide in one slick finger with an intensity of focus that makes Louis’ skin go shivery with need.

When Louis turns slightly to look at him, Harry’s eyes burn into his own and he’s worrying at his bottom lip in a way that makes Louis desperate to kiss him, to replace Harry’s teeth with his own, to explore the taste of Harry again until Louis never forgets it.

Harry adds a second finger, and Louis forgets everything anyway, in favor of _this_ , the slight burn of Harry’s long, sure fingers working him open. He can hear Harry panting behind him as well, feels when Harry ducks down to rest his forehead against Louis’ thigh as though he, too, is overwhelmed by this, but Louis wonders hazily how that can be _possible_.

Harry adds a third finger but Louis needs -- he _needs_ \--

He doesn’t realize he’s gasped the words out loud until Harry is rolling on a condom in a few quick movements and sliding into Louis, exhaling a shaky breath like he’d been holding it for a while. Louis breathes with him.

“Lou--” Harry starts with something wild in his voice, but he cuts himself off with a moan as his angle changes a bit, and suddenly there's a feeling against Louis’ prostate like an explosion of sparks, bright and fizzly and overwhelming. Harry has found a rhythm now, his hands tightening around Louis’ hips. And something about the way Harry is holding him in place -- preventing him from doing anything about his own leaking cock, even as Harry’s thrusts are getting harder -- is driving Louis wild. He realizes that he’s babbling nonsense syllables that occasionally coalesce into the word “Harry,” even as Harry himself is murmuring a stream of endearments, kissing his shoulder sloppily, and finally, _finally_ reaching down to stroke Louis’ cock before he goes utterly mad from the feeling of Harry inside him.

Louis comes almost instantly after that, his vision blurring, and he would have collapsed entirely if not for Harry’s hands still holding him up, but Harry follows him a few seconds later, and they both collapse onto the bed in a dazed heap.

“So was the journey to the bed worth it?” Louis asks some time later, after he’s regained the power of speech. He’s busying himself now with retrieving blankets from where they’ve been shoved off the bed, and settling a duvet around both himself and Harry.

“Oh, shut up,” Harry answers, and then follows up this stunning retort by cuddling aggressively into Louis’ side.

“Sorry, love, s’not in my nature,” Louis tells him cheerfully, pulling him in closer to drop a kiss on the crown of his head. Harry makes a contented noise and drops off to sleep almost immediately. Louis watches Harry’s face for a bit, with a fond smile that stays in place even after he also falls asleep.

 

***

 

Harry wakes up the next morning to Louis wearing nothing but his glasses, squinting down at a battered notebook propped against his knees. It’s one of the loveliest things he’s seen in a while, and Harry is quiet for a few moments, content to watch Louis chew on the end of his pen, frown, tap his fingers silently against the edge of the notebook, and then stick out his tongue crossly at whatever he’s just written on the page. Harry giggles at that, the sound causing Louis to look up at last.

“Hello,” he says in surprise.

“What’re you writing?” Harry asks lazily, reaching out on a whim to stroke the small bones of Louis’ ankle with his thumb. Louis snaps the notebook shut, and then smiles back at Harry.

“Calculating the score,” he says, and for some reason, Harry is positive it’s a lie, but it’s early enough and he’s comfortable enough that he lets himself be distracted.

“The score?”

“Ambush in the alley: point for me. Ambush at the restaurant: point for you. Ambush in the kitchen: I’d say that was a full five-pointer, wouldn’t you?” Louis asks smugly, as he reaches out to tuck a stray curl out of Harry’s face. Harry turns his head to chase the warmth of Louis’ fingers, and his brain is still sluggish enough that he can’t work out what Louis is talking about.

The confusion must show on his face, because Louis huffs and says, “When you kissed me outside the restaurant, you said we were even. And now we’re not.” The smug look slides back on his face, and Harry can’t help but laugh.

“You _do_ know that was a line, right? I was trying to get into your pants.”

“Oh?” Louis blinks down at him innocently. “And did it work?”

Harry climbs between Louis’ knees to kiss him, and Louis goes immediately pliant against him, humming contentedly as he strokes one lazy hand down to rest on Harry’s waist.

Harry likes Louis in the mornings, he decides. In truth, Harry is coming to realize how much he likes Louis all the time: when he’s flirting, his smile dark with promises that are all for Harry; when he’s laughing, his movements large and bright and compelling attention; even when he’s carrying himself like he’s a weapon, jagged and dangerous.

But there’s something especially wonderful about this sleep-rumpled Louis who is pressed against him right now, making a warm and private feeling settle into Harry’s chest like a grounding weight. It stays with him even as he leans back and says: “You tell me.”

“Oh, it _definitely_ worked,” Louis breathes. “Which, I think, just speaks to the many merits of a point system.” His hand slides further down to Harry’s arse, but Harry groans and pulls away.

“I’m scheduled to open the shop today. And I’m sure you’ve got music to write?”

It occurs to Harry, then, how easily Louis had diverted him from the notebook he’d been writing in. It was all so natural that Harry almost couldn’t believe it had _been_ a diversion at all. But if Harry had any doubt, it’s dispelled by the odd look that crosses Louis’ face at his mention of music.

“I suppose,” Louis says neutrally, and slips out of bed. The smile he gives Harry doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll make us some tea then.”

By the time Harry enters the kitchen, still damp from a shower, Louis is totally normal once again. If “normal” includes singing “Summer Nights” to himself as he dances around the kitchen, sloshing a pan of eggs perilously and interjecting muffled curses into the lyrics.

When Louis gets to “He got friendly, holding my -- _fookin’ toaster_ ,” Harry decides to intervene.

“Need any help?” he asks, unable to suppress the amusement coloring his voice.

“ _No_ ,” Louis insists, twiddling the dial on the toaster savagely and nearly tipping the eggs out of the pan in the process.

“Why are you even holding that?” Harry giggles. He grabs a nearby tea towel and swoops in to distract Louis with a kiss, before neatly plucking the egg pan out of his hands.

“Does that count as a point?” he asks.

“You really are shit at ambushing. I can see it coming a mile away,” Louis scoffs. Harry puts on his best pouting face, and to his shock, it actually seems to _work_. Harry’s pouting face has never, in the history of humanity, worked on _anyone_. Zayn only laughs at him, and Gemma tells him he looks like a sad frog.

“Alright, half a point,” Louis agrees, pressing his lips together like he’s trying to prevent himself from smiling. “Now eat these hopeless eggs.”

The eggs _are_ hopeless. Harry eats them anyway.

He kisses Louis again as he’s getting into the lift to leave for work.

“Did _that_ count--” he starts.

“ _No_ , Harold,” Louis insists before the doors shut.

As he’s descending in the lift, Harry thinks to check his phone. Zayn had sent a series of emoji texts, which get increasingly obscene as the night had gone on and Harry hadn’t returned to their shared flat. The last one is from that morning, and Harry recognizes the words from one of Louis’ recent hits. It just says “up up up all night.”

Harry is about to send Zayn some colorful emojis of his own when the lift doors open. Somehow, Louis is standing right outside them, red-faced and still panting slightly from his hectic run down a dozen flights of stairs.

Without a word, he launches himself through the doors of the lift and into Harry’s arms, knocking them both back against the wall and wrapping his legs snugly around Harry’s waist. Before Harry can react to any of this, his hands have cupped Louis’ arse to hold him up, and Louis is sucking a very intent bruise into his neck. Harry tips his head back against the lift with a low moan, and Louis takes that opportunity to kiss into his open mouth with a filthy swipe of his tongue, drawing another strangled noise from Harry.

Louis detaches reluctantly (Harry lets him go even more reluctantly), and stands gasping in the center of the lift. Harry, his eyes drawn inexorably to Louis’ lips, thinks dizzily that perhaps he’ll just stay against this wall for a bit. He’s not sure what will happen if he tries to stand upright.

“And _that_ ,” Louis says breathlessly, “is how you ambush-kiss like a _champion_. You're going _down_ , Styles!” And then Louis is gone, back up the stairs just as quickly and bafflingly as he’d arrived, hand fluttering in the same wave Harry recognizes from Louis’ first day in the Songbird.

Harry stands looking at the staircase for a few moments, fully aware of the absurd, besotted expression he must have on his face, before he hears a soft throat-clear to his left. It’s an elderly woman -- probably one of Louis’ neighbors, considering she’s standing at one of the mailboxes in the building lobby. She’s got a handful of envelopes and a very judgmental stare.

“We’re having a competition,” Harry explains to her cheerfully. “What’s cute is, he thinks he’s winning it.”

 

***

 

Over the next few weeks, Louis keeps finding reasons to pop by the Songbird, and Harry’s smile gets wider with every outlandish excuse. Louis deems it essential to give unsolicited music recommendations to strangers. He forgets his jackets in the storeroom, steals Harry’s jackets, and then forgets those somewhere else. He starts a heated rivalry with Zayn over some iPhone game about cartoon animals. Their trash-talk is inventive, vicious, and totally incomprehensible to Harry -- who gets shouted out of the room when he asks them to explain what’s so special about a Jigglypuff. Sometimes, Louis sets up a little nest in the corner of their storeroom, wraps himself in blankets and scribbles in his tiny battered notebook until Harry has to drag him out. He touches Harry constantly like he can’t help it; he kisses Harry like he never wants to stop.

Louis is there again on a Monday several weeks after their first karaoke outing, and Harry is curious to hear what Louis thinks about the new playlist that’s debuting that day. He’s found that Louis has an uncanny knack for making idle connections between songs that Harry thought he’d added at random, easily teasing out the subconscious threads that bind Harry’s choices together. Harry refuses to think too hard about the implications of that. He tells himself resolutely that it’s just nice to get some professional feedback.

The shop is quite busy that day, and several demanding customers manage to distract Harry from the playlist, as well as the strange look on Louis’ face and the increasingly delighted expression on Zayn’s. So it’s not until Louis mutters “This is, like, the tenth one!” and Zayn bursts out laughing, that Harry takes notice.

“Is this you taking the piss?” Louis asks Zayn, waving vaguely in the direction of the ceiling. Zayn is still trying to master his giggles. “I mean, we’re not even in the hits anymore. These are deep cuts! Did you stalk my Wikipedia?” Louis continues, as Zayn howls.

And Harry hears what’s playing in the shop: “Tell Me a Lie,” a song that Louis and Liam had produced for Kelly Clarkson’s _Stronger_. He honestly has no memory of putting it on the playlist. Judging by Louis and Zayn’s reactions, it’s not the first of Louis’ songs that Harry had inadvertently included.

“Zayn! How could you!” Harry says loudly, fumbling for the laptop he has connected to the speakers. Zayn looks affronted for a few seconds, before his face slides back into a grin and he allows Louis to punch his arm.

“Worth it for your face,” he tells Louis easily. And because Zayn is the greatest friend in the world, he only snickers a _bit_ when Bon Iver is the next thing to float through the speakers.

“Trying to regain your indie cred? Too late babe,” he murmurs to Harry, poking him in the side.

“Shut up,” Harry mutters back, feeling his face flush. Luckily, Louis doesn’t seem to notice. He’s already fallen back into a songwriting daze, and Harry knows from experience that when Louis is writing, he gets a little vague about his surroundings. Things like the presence of other humans. When he last ate a meal. Subtle details, really. Harry’s actually quite surprised that Louis descended from his writing cloud for long enough to even _notice_ the music playing around him.

Louis has sunk down to the floor behind the cashier counter, somehow managing to contort his body into the most annoying and disruptive position possible, completely preventing Harry from reaching the cash register, opening any of the drawers that hold special orders, or for that matter, moving anywhere at all. Harry is still trying to figure out why he doesn’t seem to mind.

Perhaps it has something to do with the cute smudge of pencil on the side of Louis’ nose, or the way his mouth quirks whenever he looks up to see Harry staring.

“You ever gonna let me hear any of those? You must have a full symphony by now,” Harry notes, nudging at Louis’ notebook with the toe of his boot. It’s not like he’s getting anything done anyway, so he reckons he may as well distract Louis right back.

“Maybe,” Louis tells him vaguely, tilting his head and swiping his fringe absently as he examines what he’s written.

“You won’t make me wait for radio, will you?” Harry teases, undeterred by Louis’ non-answer. “Who’re you even writing for, now?”

“Hm? Oh, er...a few different things,” Louis mumbles. They’re both quiet for a moment, and Harry can clearly sense Louis’ abrupt shift in mood. Where there was a constant scratch of pencil coming from the floor, now there’s only silence as Louis stares motionless at something on the page, his expression growing tighter the longer he sits.

Suddenly, Louis shoots up from his place on the floor, nearly knocking Harry back on his arse in the process. It’s like his lights have been flipped back on. He’s gone bright and bouncy like he’s just had a brilliant idea, but Harry can’t help but sense something desperate and destructive in the energy that’s currently thrumming through him.

“Tea!” Louis announces to the shop at large, smiling widely. “Essential component of the creative process! Zaynie?”

Zayn gives a resigned sigh, and wanders over from where he’s re-alphabetizing the Folk section. Somehow -- Harry suspects either witchcraft or blackmail -- Louis has conned his usually recalcitrant best mate into fetching him a steady stream of tea from the shop across the street. But this time, Louis shakes his head and circles around the counter to head toward the front door himself.

“No, just...come with me, please?” There’s an edge to Louis’ voice when he asks. Zayn shoots Harry a confused glance, but Harry can only shrug helplessly in response before watching Zayn and Louis leave. The space behind the cashier counter suddenly feels cavernous. Harry wonders why he’s never noticed that before.

After a long while, when Zayn and Louis haven’t returned and Harry is considering mounting a search party, Harry hears the bell on the door ding. He looks up with a grin, and tries not to let it fall too obviously when he sees Liam.

“Harry, mate!” Liam says, beaming back at him, seemingly unaware of Harry’s disappointment. “Lou around?”

It should be an odd question, but Harry doesn’t mind it. He actually flushes a bit with pleasure at Liam’s presumption that Harry and Louis would be together.

“Went for a tea. He should be back soon,” Harry offers, his smile turning into something a bit more genuine.

“Well...” Liam looks uncertain, glancing out the door and then back at Harry, before squaring his shoulders like he’s made up his mind about something.

“Maybe he’ll listen to you,” Liam murmurs, so quietly that Harry isn’t certain he was meant to hear it. “He’s ducking my calls, the brat,” Liam continues. His voice is fond, but there’s genuine concern in his eyes. “Harry, can you please remind Louis that he does actually have a job? Of course he’s very busy here--” he shoots Harry a knowing little grin, and Harry can’t help but flush deeper at the implication. He _knows_ he used to be cooler than this. “...But I can’t cover for him forever. Simon is starting to get that Look, and it’s been _weeks_ , and he hasn’t written _anything_ \--”

Liam sounds like he’s picking up steam for a full-blown rant, and Harry can’t help but interrupt.

“Hang on,” he says slowly. “Of course he’s written things. He’s been writing non-stop, he’s barely lifted his nose from that notebook for _days_.”

Liam blinks at him for a long while, mouth slightly open, before he seems to pull himself together. His face goes momentarily blank, like a mask is slotting into place, and for the first time, Harry understands how Liam can survive in a place like Syco.

“My mistake,” Liam says pleasantly. “I misspoke. Of course Louis is writing _here_. But it’s important that he...does some writing at the studio as well.”

“Alright. I’ll, uh, tell him,” Harry mumbles, confused and a little annoyed. He can’t help but feel that Liam had started letting him into something important, only to slam the door in his face once again. Harry knows intellectually that he has no right to Louis’ secrets, but he can’t help but _wish_...

“Good. Well.” Liam looks around the store a bit helplessly. “I’ll just...see you around, then.”

Harry doesn’t even have time to work through that conversation before Louis and Zayn are pushing through the door. There’s a tenseness to Louis’ shoulders, and Harry tries to tamp down on an irrational feeling of annoyance when he sees it.

“Was that Liam who just left?” Zayn asks lazily, and Louis, if possible, stiffens even further.

“Yeah, he was actually looking for you, Lou. He wants you back at the studio; seems our Liam doesn’t trust that you’re _actually working_ unless he sees proof of it himself.”

It’s not a particularly funny joke -- Harry will admit that -- but that doesn’t explain why Louis’ face flushes and he starts gulping down his to-go cup of tea like he wants to drown in it. Harry’s puzzlement at Louis’ cryptic behavior only grows when Louis says dully:

“Right. I’d better go after him, before it all gets worse.”

“Lou?” Harry tries once, as Louis is gathering his things from behind the desk, but Louis either doesn’t hear him or pretends not to, because he doesn’t say anything else save a quiet “Night, lads” as he’s slipping out of the shop.

Harry turns to stare and Zayn, whose expression of wide-eyed confusion is a mirror for his own. And suddenly Harry’s annoyance returns with a vengeance, and he throws himself into the chair behind the desk in an ill-concealed show of temper.

“It won’t help to get stroppy about this,” Zayn tells him quietly. Zayn looks troubled as well, though, as though he’s thinking hard about something and doesn’t like any of the conclusions he’s coming to. Sometimes, Harry wishes he had a best mate who was slightly easier to ruffle, because to Harry, this seems like the _perfect_ time for a strop.

“It’s just...I thought we were-- I thought he might _trust_ me.”

Zayn’s eyes narrow, and his next words come out equally sharp. “What, like you trust him?”

“That’s different,” Harry grumbles, and he doesn’t even need to look at Zayn’s face to sense how inadequate his friend finds that answer. And perhaps it’s the sense of wounded innocence still coursing through Harry that makes him rush to defend a position that he’d almost prefer to be talked out of.

“It may not be his choice, what he’d do with the cover, or what he’d try to make me do. He has obligations to Syco, and he might not be able to break them. Is it really so bad to just...save him the choice between Syco’s welfare or mine?”

The look Zayn gives him then might be driest, least impressed thing Harry has ever seen.

 

***

 

When Louis slinks into Syco later that day, he half expects Liam to jump dramatically out of an empty office and accuse him of shirking work. And thus, it leaves him completely unprepared when he walks through their office door and finds Liam perched on the horrible orange sofa, biting his lip and staring up at Louis with wide, worried eye.

“Simon’s looking for you,” is all Liam says, after waiting for Louis to finish tripping over a metronome that one of them (read: Louis) had left on their floor. Louis’ first thought is _how did Simon know I’d been writing_? He resists the urge to double-check that his small, black leather-bound notebook is still in his pocket, and hasn’t somehow been spirited away in the night. It’s not like Simon is in MI6 or anything.

Well. Simon _probably_ isn’t in MI6 or anything.

“Lovely. This is sure to be fun.” Louis manages a strangled half-smirk that, from the sharpening of Liam’s gaze, doesn’t fool him for a moment. He turns to go -- it’s his experience that Simon doesn’t like to be kept waiting. But Liam is across their tiny office and gripping Louis’ bicep before he can make his escape.

“Lou--” Liam’s voice is as heavy as his hand on Louis’ arm, weighed down with worry and expectations and the stifling optimism of someone who hasn’t ever truly fucked up. Not _really_ , not in the big ways that Louis seems to excel in.

“It’ll be fine, Liam. He’s probably just wondering how the Ariana song is coming along.” Louis, in contrast, feels light and brittle, pieces of him floating away before he can anchor them down properly.

He shakes out of Liam’s hold and shuts the office door on his way out.

Despite his reassurances to Liam, Louis knows that Simon would never seek him out for a _progress report_ , of all things. He’d thought he had a few more weeks before his steady accumulation of canceled meetings and missed deadlines piled high enough to catch Simon’s attention. He’s so busy thinking of the best way to spin an excuse that will get Simon to back off long enough for Louis to come up with a real solution, that he doesn’t notice Niall in Simon’s office until he nearly sits down right on top of him.

“Oh, sorry-- didn’t realize you were in another meeting,” Louis mumbles, and begins to make a beeline for the door.

“Actually, Louis, this _is_ your meeting.”

Louis blinks at them both. Simon’s face, as usual, gives nothing away, while Niall’s has an odd tightness to it that Louis can’t quite read either.

“Is this about the album?” Louis tries out cautiously.

“In a manner of speaking. Please. Have a seat.” Louis complies, his unease growing with Simon’s widening smile.

“The sales for _Through the Dark_ have done remarkably well. Exceeded expectations, in fact. Well done, boys.”

Louis waits for the trap to be sprung. It doesn’t take long.

Simon clasps his hands together on his desk and fixes them both with a shrewd stare. “And now I'd say it’s time to look toward the future.”

 

***

 

Niall slams his way into Louis and Liam’s office. The sudden noise sends Liam, who clearly hadn’t moved from his anxious perch on the sofa, tumbling off with a squeak of alarm. Niall seems oblivious to Liam’s presence; the moment he gets inside the room, he’s rounding on Louis.

“How could you!?” Niall practically shouts as his face turns a mottled red. Louis is startled enough by his vehemence that he stops dead in the doorway and blinks back at Niall.

“What happened?” Liam glances between them.

“It’s not like we had a choice,” Louis points out in his most reasonable tone, but this only seems to further enrage Niall.

“What the _fuck_ , Louis?”

“ _What happened_?” Liam repeats urgently, but Niall isn’t done.

“You said it yourself! You only agreed to the first album because you thought we’d be done after that. Simon wanted to use your material on my debut album to establish me, and then I was meant to take it from there. _That’s_ what we agreed to when we started this.”

Louis laughs hollowly and finally has the presence of mind to shut their door, trapping him in their tiny office with one confused Liam and one very pissed-off Niall.

“You heard him, Ni. Like I said -- we don’t have a choice.” Niall’s eyes narrow into shards of ice-blue.

“No. _I_ don’t have a choice. I’m in a three-album contract, I know I’m fucked. _You_ , on the other hand--”

“ _What did Simon say_ ,” Liam interjects, the wringing of his hands suggesting his increased desperation for a coherent answer. Niall rounds on him with a snort, his own body language becoming a little wild.

“'Well of _course_ you’re a free agent, Louis,'” Niall says in such a spot-on imitation of Simon’s voice that Louis has to resist the urge to check behind the sofa for where he’s hiding. “'But I thought you’d jump at the chance. Since your current projects don’t seem to be capturing your attention.'”

Liam groans and Niall glares, but Louis can only press his lips together and stay silent. That hadn’t been all Simon had said. At the end of the meeting, after Niall had already walked through the door, he’d asked Louis to stay for a moment longer. By the time Louis had made his way back to Simon’s desk, any trace of amiability had faded from his face, and his voice, when he finally spoke, was granite-hard.

“Let me be perfectly clear, Louis. I don’t give a fuck what’s in your contract. You _will_ ghost-write these next two albums, and however many others I decide to ask from you. Don’t forget that I have your old notebook, and all the original copies of your songs. Naturally I take no pleasure from using these sorts of threats. But make no mistake -- if you force me to, I can always release everything to the press. Your career would never recover. And neither would Niall’s.”

Back in their office, Niall makes a small, frustrated noise. “I just don’t understand it. Why won’t you _fight for yourself_?” And that’s when something in Louis breaks.

“Because I’m too busy fighting for you, you _utter_ arsehole!”

All the color drains completely out of Niall’s face, and at first Louis thinks it’s from shock, but at Niall’s next words -- said in a low, hard voice that Louis barely even recognizes -- he realizes that Niall is furious. Maybe angrier than Louis has ever seen him before.

“I didn't ask for that. And I won’t let you do it. I _won’t_.” With these words, and one truly frightening parting glare, Niall storms out of the office. There’s a brief silence that Liam seems hesitant to break. Louis, still reeling from his argument with Niall, is distantly thankful for it. But soon enough, Liam gives an almost apologetic cough and asks quietly:

“D’you think Niall will come up with some way to fix this?” The set of Liam’s shoulders is wary, but there’s enough hope sparking to life in his expression that Louis almost hates himself for the answer he knows he needs to give.

“No,” Louis says shortly, and turns away before Liam can answer. He busies himself at their shared desk, refusing to turn back around. After a long, tense pause, Louis hears a small sigh and the soft “snick” of the door as Liam leaves too.

Louis sighs and rests his head on the desk, banging his forehead against it twice. In the stillness of the empty office, it’s easier to hear the ringing memory of Simon’s parting words. Louis had been reaching out for the door handle -- so close to freedom -- when Simon’s quiet laugh had called him back.

_Did you really think, after everything you’ve done, you’d be able to just walk away? With no consequences? Louis, come on. Do you honestly believe that’s what you deserve?_

 

***

 

“It is pretty great, you know,” Harry tells Louis later that night. Louis had slunk in and immediately burrowed into Harry’s sofa, looking exhausted enough by whatever must’ve happened with Liam that Harry could feel any vestiges of his own irritation sliding away. He’s happy enough to put on a rerun of _The Great British Bake Off_ and let Louis press his face into Harry’s thigh while Harry runs his fingers absently through Louis’ hair. “The music you and Liam make, I mean.”

Louis’ shoulders go tense.

“S’alright,” he says lightly. But there’s something hiding in the tone of voice that makes Harry frown and focus in more closely on Louis’ face. He is staring very intently at the television, watching one contestant struggle with a Baked Alaska.

“I mean it, Lou. I could always tell when it was one of yours on the radio. There’s something...familiar about them. I know that sounds stupid--”

“It makes sense, actually.” Louis laughs easily, but nothing reaches his eyes. “Pop music is actually pretty formulaic. It sounds familiar because it’s all been done before.”

“ _No_ , that’s not--” Harry begins, frustrated, wondering how he can get Louis to actually _listen_ to him. But Louis interrupts him again.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything.” Louis shrugs. “Nobody’s life is gonna be changed by ‘Kiss You.’” He’s fiddling with the television remote now, his hands revealing the agitation that his voice perfectly conceals.

“You don’t know that,” Harry insists. “My whole store, yeah? It’s filled with music that people dismissed. Decca Records turned down the Beatles, right?”

Louis laughs. “I really doubt me ‘n’ Liam are the next Beatles.”

“The point is,” Harry insists. “Music only gets popular if it means _something_ to _someone_. Your music makes people happy. I wish--” Harry thinks about his own notebooks, different colors for different uses and inspirations, stashed in various places around his flat so that one is never far from his reach. He thinks about the handful of covers he’s recorded, all saved on his laptop in a folder called “Nothing To See Here.” He’d thought it was funny, at the time, because the only thing in the folder was audio files. Zayn had thrown a pillow at him.

Louis squints sideways at him. “Harry. Do you write music?”

“Nah, I’m rubbish at it. Can’t even sing, remember?” Harry is ashamed at how easily the lie comes to him. It feels even worse when Louis doesn’t notice -- doesn’t jump off the sofa to point his finger and hurl dramatic accusations -- only nudges him and teases, “I’m sure you’re not _that_ bad, you know. Like what about in the shower? _Everyone_ sounds good in the shower.”

Harry forces himself to focus on the warmth of Louis’ smile, more than ready to change the subject.

“Are you angling for a private concert?” he asks lazily, enjoying the way Louis’ eyes turn a stormy shade of blue at the suggestion.

“Yes. Absolutely. C’mon, Popstar,” Louis says hoarsely, tugging Harry off the sofa. Harry is quite happy to follow.

 

***

 

Harry wakes up to his head on Louis’ chest and an annoying buzzing coming from somewhere in the room. He hears Louis mumble something unintelligible before gently nudging Harry onto his own side, and then he feels the bed shift when Louis slips out of it.

Harry snuggles back into the warmth of Louis’ pillow and drifts happily in between sleeping and waking, vaguely conscious of the hall light filtering through a crack in the bedroom door and the soothing murmur of Louis’ voice from the other room.

After a hazily indeterminate amount of time, Harry hears his own name. It wakes him up enough to listen properly, and that’s when he realizes that Louis’ voice has gotten steadily louder over the course of the conversation, loud enough now for Harry to hear him without any trouble.

“--sick of arguing about this. I know you think it’s wrong, but I’m not changing my mind.” There’s a pause as Louis listens to the other person on the line. “I _know_ it’s shitty, but it’s not like I had any illusions about what I was signing. I’m an adult and I made a choice. I knew I’d have to lie.” A much longer pause. When he speaks again, Harry is surprised by the devastation in Louis’ voice, until the words actually register, bouncing around in his head too violently for anything else to really come through. “You don’t understand, Liam. If Harry finds out, he will _never_ forgive me.”

Everything has gone a little staticky. Harry doesn’t even realize he’s left the bed until he finds himself pushing the door to the hallway open.

“Find out about what?” he asks. Louis jumps and drops his phone. There’s a faint noise of Liam calling out through the speaker, but neither of them pays it any mind, and after a few seconds, Liam ends the call.

“I didn’t know you were awake,” Louis finally says quietly, pulling his arms into his body in what Harry recognizes as his vulnerable, defensive pose.

“Find out about what?” Harry repeats, a little louder.

Louis’ gaze skitters around the hallway, misery and guilt and hesitance written all over his expression.

“I... _shit_ , H. I really can’t tell you,” Louis breathes out, wiping a tired hand down his face. “There’s more to it than just _us._ ”

There’s a wobbly downturn to his mouth, a tremor in his arms; his eyes are wide and a little pleading. Harry realizes abruptly that he’s never actually seen Louis look _frightened_ before. And he wants to touch Louis, to reassure them both, drag him back to bed and whisper “I’m here” into his skin. But Harry also needs to hear the truth.

“I’m not stupid, you know,” Harry says quietly, and Louis’ head shoots up at that. He’s still in that embattled pose that Harry recognizes from one of their first encounters in the Songbird. Harry remembers what he’d thought of Louis then: that he was a manipulative bastard who’d do anything to get what he wanted.

“I know you were keeping secrets about _something_ during this whole--” Harry chokes on the word “relationship,” and just manages to wave weakly at the air between the two of them. “Zayn tried to warn me -- said that some people don’t want _rescuing_ , but I was _so sure_. I thought I could get you to trust me. I was _so fucking sure_ of you, Lou.” Harry laughs hollowly. “Pretty stupid, right?”

He watches the way Louis’ expression breaks then, anguish shining through the fragments of it, but he can’t imagine that it’s _anything_ compared to what Harry is feeling, like all the air has been sucked out of the room and he’s left choking on dust.

“Hazza. That’s not-- you’re _not_ stupid, you’re brilliant.” Louis shuts his mouth abruptly, and Harry recognizes the look in his eyes. It’s begging Harry to listen to the chords of meaning under his words, to listen for what Louis feels he can’t say out loud.

But Harry is getting really fucking tired of subtext.

“Then prove it. Explain it all to me. Why did you want the ‘Strong’ cover so badly? What’s really going on between you and Niall? Why are you pretending you’re not writing music? What were you saying to Liam, just now?”

Louis opens his mouth, but no noise comes out. Harry shakes his head with a mocking smile.

“That’s what I thought. You were never going to trust me with anything, were you? Maybe you just get off on it -- twisting peoples’ heads around, making them guess. Maybe the secret is that there nothing real to tell.”

Louis stills completely, like he’s hardened to stone. By the time he opens his mouth, he’s managed to wipe any the emotion from his voice entirely.

“Bit rich, coming from you, all this talk about trust.”

Harry blinks at him, honestly baffled about what Louis is getting at. “What?”

“Just that you lied to me too. Zayn told me about the ‘Strong’ cover, you know.”

And just like that, everything has gone staticky again. Louis knows that Harry sang the cover. And he’s just said he signed something -- did something unforgivable.

_Is that the secret, then?_ Harry wonders. Harry can’t imagine that Louis -- _his Louis_ \-- would sell Harry out to Syco without his knowledge. But Harry’s mind works furiously to slot the puzzle pieces together, testing out the cryptic comments and unexplainable details of the last few weeks against his new working theory. He has to admit that it makes sense. Louis had been upfront about the fact that he wanted the ‘Strong’ cover and would do anything to get it. Maybe that’s all their relationship has been about.

“So this was all for the song, then?” Harry asks, scrubbing a hand over his face and suddenly weary of this whole conversation.

Louis eyes are widening, and he scrambles to answer, his fingers shaping shaky pleas into the air.

“No, Haz, of course not. I told you I don’t care about it, I just want _you_.” His cheeks are splotchy with emotion, and Harry has to remind himself _again_ that it’s nothing more than an act.

“Me,” Harry repeats flatly. “And what were you planning on doing with me?”

“What?”

“Once you’d gotten me. What were you planning on doing with me?”

“Whatever you wanted. For however long you wanted. I don’t understand--” Louis’ imploring voice takes on an undercurrent of confusion, but Harry is too angry to care about why. He can feel the furious thudding of his heart, can hear his voice rising.

“God, have you actually started to believe your own spin? Is there anything about you that’s not a complete lie!?”

It seems those words are a magic spell of sorts, causing all the fight to leave Louis’ body with an almost audible whoosh. He looks very small, suddenly, his usual larger-than-life charisma flickering out like a broken lightbulb. He’s unable to meet Harry’s eyes as he mumbles his next words.

“I thought you knew there was.”

“Apparently I don’t know a fucking thing about you, Louis Tomlinson. And I don’t think I want to.”

Louis bites his lip and finally looks up at Harry, and Harry pretends he doesn’t see the heartbreak on Louis’ face. He refuses to feel guilty for his anger. He knows he’s completely in the right. If anything, the lurch that his stomach gives when he sees Louis’ hopeless expression is _Louis’_ fault, for playing his part too well and making Harry fall--

No.

Harry’s face is dispassionate as he watches Louis turn and leave without another word.


	4. Chapter 4

Later, Louis won’t remember the journey back to his own flat. All he can see is Harry’s furious face; all he can hear is Harry’s cold dismissal, as though Harry is standing next to him, repeating the words in his ear to ensure that Louis never forgets a syllable. Instead, it’s the familiar route home that’s blurred, as though his current surroundings are the memory and Harry’s flat is the only place that’s truly real.

But somehow, he does get home -- he blinks and he’s standing in the entryway, looking around at it like it’s the home of a stranger. His flat feels both oppressive and large, all at once. Louis realizes miserably that he’s already used to having another person there, and without Harry, everything is too quiet and empty. There are already noticeable signs of Harry’s presence all over the flat, inverting Louis’ usual sense of order. Teacups that Louis normally leaves on every surface are now neatly stacked in his sink, and those showy coffee table books of Tudor homes or Ansel Adams photography -- that nobody ever really _reads_ for God’s sake -- lie scattered about his floor, already looking more ragged and thumb-worn in a couple weeks than they have in all the years he’s owned them.

God, it’s been a _couple weeks_. How did he let this _happen_?

Louis sits down heavily on his sofa, nearly impaling himself on one of Harry’s ill-conceived crafting attempts, which Louis is pretty sure he’d left there on purpose.

(“It’s called _felting_ ,” Harry had said, beaming, holding his project out for Louis’ inspection. To be honest, it looked a lot like a Tribble that a cat had vomited back up.

“‘Felting’ definitely sounds like a sex thing,” Louis had observed.

“Yes,” Harry had replied pleasantly. “First you shove this sharp needle so far up your --”

“It looks amazing, H!”)

_How will I keep living here now?_

Because if anything has become obvious to Louis over the past hour, it’s that all that time he’d spent being careful, and guarded, and _very_ pleased with his own level-headedness, had been a stupid waste of effort. It doesn’t hurt any less.

Things seem to be happening to Louis in flashes, like some sort of montage of his life. One minute, Louis is clutching the vomit-Tribble to his chest, his breathing gone a bit ragged. The next, he’s off the sofa with a phone pressed to his ear. And it’s only when he hears Liam’s familiar voice that he understands who he’s called.

“--didn’t even bother to hang up properly, you wanker. Next time Haz surprises you with sex, can you at least get me off the line first?”

“Li--” Louis chokes, and Liam is shocked into silence. “He’s not right, is he? You would tell me if he was right?”

“Right about what? Louis, what’s going on? Where are you?”

Louis can feel the tears on his cheeks, can hear the quaver in his voice that make his words almost incomprehensible, but none of it seems as important as hearing the answer to his question.

“Liam, you need to-- just _tell me_. Tell me I’m a liar, and-- and _hollow_.”

“Who told you that? It’s not true,” There’s an uncharacteristic sharpness to Liam’s tone now, but Louis can barely even hear him over the thrum of his own panicked misery.

“That’s how it feels,” Louis tells him quietly, sniffling, trying to get his hiccupy breathing under control. “The flat is empty and-- That’s how everything feels.”

“Louis. Listen to me. I’m coming over. Don’t go anywhere,” Liam’s voice is authoritative, taking on that parental cast that Louis usually never tires of teasing him about. But now Louis is almost grateful. It seems infinitely easier to rely on someone else's authority, rather than take any action as himself.

The montage cuts again -- Louis doesn’t remember hanging up the phone -- and Liam is banging on his front door.

Liam sweeps him up in a hug the moment he answers it. Over his shoulder, Louis can see Niall slipping in behind him, pale and wide-eyed as he takes in Louis’ tear-streaked face.

“What happened with Harry?” Liam demands, leading Louis to the sofa and allowing him to burrow into his side. Niall plonks down on his other side and drapes himself over Louis’ back, rubbing his face against the wispy strands of hair at the nape of Louis’ neck. It’s oddly grounding, like they’ve created a protective cocoon within which Louis can finally start to breathe again.

So Louis tells them. He tells them how much he dreads walking into Syco and having to write on command, how much he’s tried not to only write for himself, and how he selfishly can’t seem to stop. He also tells them about Harry: about his wide smile; and the easy, unexpected way he keeps up with Louis’ banter; and the fact that he seems to instinctively understand fragments of Louis that he’d managed to keep hidden even from himself; and the way that makes him scared -- _so fucking scared_ \-- because he’d inadvertently given Harry a glimpse of his most broken pieces, and Harry’d made it perfectly clear that he abhorred them.

“When Simon handed us that contract, I didn’t see a way out. I thought the consequences would be manageable, and that it would be the best thing for everyone. But now I wish I’d done anything -- just _run_ and never looked back -- rather than sign. I think it might’ve ruined me,” Louis finally admits miserably.

Liam’s arm tightens around his shoulders and Niall actually _coos_ at him, nuzzling more aggressively into one of Louis’ shoulder blades.

“Lou, _no_ \--” Liam soothes, but before he can say anything more, the front door to Louis’ flat slams open. The three of them jump at the sudden noise, and Louis can’t help but cower a bit, filled with the sudden irrational fear that it’s Harry come to have another go at him.

When he sees that it’s Zayn, he’s even more tempted to hide his face in Liam’s shoulder and never emerge. The last person he wants to see right now is Harry Styles’ best friend.

And Zayn looks proper furious, too, wild-eyed and striding toward Louis. Liam’s arms clench around him, and Louis wonders distantly if Zayn is about to punch him. He reckons it catches them all by surprise when instead, Zayn sinks down to his knees in front of Louis on the sofa, throws his arms around him, and murmurs, “I’m so sorry, Lou,” into his shoulder.

Zayn seems to catch their shocked stares, because he tells Louis, a little defensively, “I’m your friend, too!”

Louis first instinct is gratitude, and a strong wish that he could just sink into the comfort. But Louis knows that somewhere, out there in the world, Harry is hurting. Perhaps that knowledge shouldn’t affect him anymore. It does anyway.

“Yeah but--” Louis bites his lip, wishing desperately that he could avoid discussing this altogether. “He needs you,” Louis mumbles, ducking his head so that none of the boys can see his expression. He’s embarrassed at how pathetic he must come across: still hung up on a person who’d made it perfectly clear how little they wanted him back.

But Zayn’s expression melts at Louis words, and he only hugs him tighter.

“Tell that to Harry,” Zayn says when he pulls back from the hug, and there’s a sudden flash of anger in his eyes. Louis realizes that he’d been right to believe that Zayn was furious, he’d just been mistaken about the target. “He was _not_ well pleased to hear that I’d told you about the ‘Strong’ cover. Had a right go at me, actually, and may have temporarily...kicked me out of the flat?” Zayn looks a little sheepish at that admission, and it just makes Louis feel worse.

“I’m sorry,” he moans. “I never should have said--”

“Shut up,” Zayn interrupts lightly. “I know _exactly_ whose fault this all is, and it’s not yours.” He pauses, as though weighing the exact words of his next statement very carefully. “Lou...Harry’s a twat for the way he jumped to conclusions -- and we all could’ve done without the self-righteous tantrum -- but there _is_ a way to fix this.”

Zayn takes a deep breath and meets Louis’ eyes with an odd sort of determination.

“You need to tell Harry that you wrote the album.”

There’s a ringing silence as the three other boys struggle to process what Zayn just said. Louis is shockingly the first to recover.

“What--who told--” Louis stutters. He glares around at Liam and Niall, but it’s clear from one look at their faces that they’re as shocked as he is.

“Nobody told me. It’s not like any of you were being particularly _subtle_ ,” Zayn shrugs.

“Does Harry--” Eventually, Louis will manage a complete sentence, but there’s still enough of a panicked buzzing in his ears that he appreciates whatever garbled words he manages to stammer out.

“No, Harry has no idea. Maybe it was more obvious to me because I’ve seen it before,” Zayn admits.

“What do you mean by _that_?” Niall jumps in. Louis is distantly grateful to him for picking up the tattered threads of this conversation.

“He used to be signed by Syco.” It takes Louis a moment to realize it’s Liam who has spoken; Zayn and Niall are also staring at him with equal confusion. Zayn opens his mouth to answer, and then shuts it again, his eyes wide. Liam gives him a gentle smile.

“I watched X Factor religiously when I was a teenager, you know. I actually auditioned one year…didn’t make it past Judges’ Houses. And after that, I reckon I was a bit obsessed, still convinced I was gonna go back and prove myself. But then I got some scholarship money for uni, and I met Lou, and--anyway. Point is, I remember you. I remembered you right away, actually, but it didn’t seem like you wanted to talk about it. So. I kept it to myself.”

Zayn is gaping at Liam -- they all are, probably -- but Zayn’s eyes are a little wet when he suddenly lunges over and pulls Liam into a rough hug. Louis manages to duck out from between them just in time to avoid being squashed.

“Thanks,” Zayn mumbles, before twisting around to fix Louis with a terrifying look. “But what happened to me after X Factor is exactly why I think you need to talk to Harry. He got me out. And after all the artists he’s discovered and passed along to friendly labels? All the money he’s made for them? _Everyone_ in this industry owes him a favor. And he’d call them in -- every fucking chip -- the _instant_ you asked. For you, Lou, he wouldn’t even hesitate.”

Zayn’s eyes are wide and earnest, and he seems _so sure_ that for a brief moment, Louis wavers. For a brief moment, he wants to let Zayn’s optimism convince him.

“Oh, for _Louis_. I see how it is,” Niall grumbles under his breath, even as he directs a small, pleased smile toward Louis and Zayn.

“Shut up, you berk. That was really sweet, and you just _ruined_ it,” Liam hisses back, giving Niall a light punch on the arm for good measure.

“Yeah, it’s a nice idea,” Louis sighs, and the shock on the faces of the other three boys causes him to stiffen slightly. Feeling defensive, he pulls his legs up onto the sofa to hooks his chin around his knees. He blinks back at them from behind his newly created barrier.

“It’s...more than an idea, Louis,” Niall starts, with uncharacteristic caution. “You’ve been saying there’s no way out, but Zayn’s just given us one. We’ll just talk to Harry, and everything will be sorted. You’ll see.”

Louis can’t help but laugh a bit hollowly at that. “Alright. Leaving aside the fact that Harry just broke up with me, so I have strong doubts about any plan that starts with ‘we’ll just talk to Harry’... Right now he thinks I’m a lying Syco producer who’d be willing to plagiarize to advance my own career, right? And _he hates me for it_. And I’m meant to track him down and say, ‘Oh, Harry, you’ve got it all wrong. I _am_ a lying Syco producer who plagiarized to advance my own career, but so did Niall, so it’s all right!’ And you expect him swoon into my arms? Not bloody likely.”

“Lou, it isn’t the same. Can you really not see--” Liam starts gently, but Louis isn’t done.

“And then, instead of the unsubstantiated wisp of a rumor he’s got ahold of now, I’d have just handed my ex-boyfriend, _who hates me_ , enough material to ruin one of my best friends. So you can see why I’m a little skeptical that ‘everything will be sorted,’ Niall,” Louis finishes, trying to pretend his voice isn’t full-on shaking with a cocktail of fear, anger, and misery. “You can see why I have concerns.”

“Harry wouldn’t,” Zayn says, and now his voice is also shaking, although from him it sounds like pure anger. “He would _never_ \--”

“ _Really_?” Louis interrupts loudly. At some point during this conversation, he’s leapt to his feet, so that he and Zayn are now facing each other in the center of the room while Liam and Niall remain seated on sofa, watching them shout at each other with unconcealed alarm. “Because you just got finished telling me that Harry Styles has connections with _everyone_ in the business, and that he wouldn’t hesitate to use them if he thought someone was doing wrong. So which is it, Zayn?”

“Stop twisting my words around, Louis, you know that’s not what I meant! He’d _believe_ you, he’d know you weren’t to blame for it--”

“I am to blame!” Louis roars. A ringing silence follows the declaration, and Louis stares at the floor, unable to look at the faces his friends are making right now.

But Liam is instantly beside him, wrapping a solid arm around Louis’ shoulders and trying to draw him back to the sofa. Louis -- in a last-ditch attempt to forestall the tears he can feel clogging the back of his throat -- digs his heels in and starts babbling desperately:

“I could’ve left Syco before this happened, and I didn’t. I signed that fucking contract, _I did this_ , and I’m not going to get Harry mixed up in it. _I won’t_.”

“Don’t you think Harry deserves to make that choice for himself?” Niall asks from the sofa. They’re the first words he’s spoken in a long time, and he’s chewing his lip thoughtfully as he glances up at Louis, his blue eyes uncharacteristically troubled.

“No,” Louis insists sharply. “I don’t. And Zayn, if you say a _single word_ , I’ll--”

_You’ll what? There’s nothing you can do. Just another train wreck you can’t prevent._

“I’ll lie. I’ll tell him you’re making it all up.” It’s a pitiful kind of threat in the grand scheme of things, but something about the tone of Louis’ voice must sound fierce enough to pull it off, because Zayn’s mouth drops open. His expression is halfway between surprise and outrage, like he hasn’t quite settled on one or the other. Niall is cursing quietly to himself and Liam is doing that defeated little eyebrow-furrow that means he’s resigned himself to going along with another idea he doesn’t like. But it’s Zayn who’s occupying Louis’ whole focus, and Zayn whose eyes are blazing back at Louis like he’s gearing up for battle. They stare at each other for a tense five seconds, before Zayn’s shoulders slump almost imperceptibly, and Louis finally feels like he can breathe.

“Fine,” Zayn bites out, and whirls around toward the front door of Louis’ flat.

“Zayn--” Louis isn’t proud of the wobble he doesn’t quite manage to scrub from his voice, but it does get Zayn to stop, his back still turned to the other boys. “Promise me, Zayn, please. Promise you won’t tell. It’s just...easier. If he hates me for something that’s not true, rather than something that is.”

Zayn slowly turns back around, and now he just looks sad.

“ _Fine_. I really fucking hate it, but I promise.”

 

***

 

That Sunday night finds Harry sitting at the kitchen table in his flat, with a collection of mostly full teacups littered around his laptop and nudging at his elbows. Harry keeps having the vague impression that tea is called for, and he goes through the motions of boiling more water before noticing that he’s forgotten to drink the last pot.

It’s not until he glances around after Cup #5 and fully takes in the contents of the mugs he’s been brewing -- Yorkshire with a splash of milk, rather than his own preferred green blend -- that he realizes it’s Louis he’s been making tea for all along.

Harry carries the cups to the sink and watches them flow down the drain one-by-one. Then he shuts his teapot up in a cupboard and tries in vain to forget it’s there.

He goes back to the kitchen table with the sense that he’s accomplished something to be proud of, until he’s confronted once again by his weekly playlist. It’s got a lot of angry female country singers and not much else, unless you count the four times in a row that “Go Your Own Way” is set to play between the Dixie Chicks and Miranda Lambert. He frowns down at his laptop and forces himself to at least _try_ to diversify. And he’s just congratulating himself on finding an almost cheerful Florence + the Machine song, while resolutely ignoring the fact that “Strong” has snuck onto the playlist again (ten times and counting), when someone starts pounding on the door to his flat.

_Probably Zayn_ , Harry thinks with a scowl. He feels a pang of guilt for their row, for the accusations he’d flung at a shocked and increasingly thunderous Zayn. He’s still furious at Zayn for spilling a secret that wasn’t his to tell, but Harry can admit now, with hindsight and five untouched cups of Yorkshire tea, that as angry as he is that Zayn trusted Louis, he’s angrier at himself by far.

The thing is, Harry’s always been crap at lying, even to himself. And all along, he’s known that Louis has been carefully concealing something from his view. He’d deflected and pivoted and distracted Harry every time he got close, and just because Harry _let_ him didn’t mean he didn’t know. He’d just been too slow to react to the implications, too dazzled by the way Louis’ voice resonates in the air even when he’s stopped speaking, like the echoes of a bell that only Harry can hear. Too drunk on the taste of Louis laughing against his mouth while stealing kisses in the storeroom. Too desperate.

Harry is usually so good at trusting his instincts. Perhaps, if Louis hadn’t been quite so lovely, Harry’s instincts would’ve stood a better chance.

The pounding at the door has escalated -- in both frequency and intensity -- in the brief seconds that Harry’s sat lost in thought. It sounds like Zayn might be kicking it a bit, too, so Harry heaves a sigh and goes to answer it before Zayn actually breaks something. He’s got a barb ready on the tip of his tongue as he swings the door wide.

“You’re still a-- _Niall_!?”

Because it is, indeed, Niall, looking red-faced and determined, and like he’s gearing up to launch himself bodily at something. With the door out of the way, it seems that Harry will do just as well, since Niall’s next move is to shove a startled Harry backwards into his flat and slam the door behind them both.

“ _Right_ ,” Niall wheezes, pointing wildly at Harry. “We’re sorting this out _right now_.”

For a brief, hysterical moment, Harry thinks that Niall intends to throw a punch at him, but instead Niall just pushes past Harry and settles at his kitchen table. He flickers a glance over the playlist still open on Harry’s laptop.

“This is truly pathetic, Hazza. I hope you know,” he notes, and then directs a meaningful glare at Harry’s other kitchen chair. Harry shifts his weight from foot to foot and tries to think up a way to get out of whatever horrible row they’re about to have. Harry can’t quite decide if Niall is here to plead Syco’s case, or to shout at Harry for turning Louis down, but it doesn’t much matter. Harry doesn’t want to be here for either option.

“Look, Niall, I’m sorry about what happened with Louis--” Harry offers, biting the inside of his cheek.

“No you’re not,” Niall snorts. It brings Harry up short from composing conciliatory phrases in his head.

“What?”

“You’re not sorry,” Niall repeats, raising his eyebrows. “By the look of that playlist, it’s more like...fuckin’ self-indulgent.”

“Fuck off, that’s not fair!” Harry retorts, and he can feel himself getting proper angry now. It’s one thing for Louis’ best mate to come and plead his case. It’s entirely another for Niall sit there, so calm and matter-of-fact, and imply that _Harry_ is doing something wrong.

“Sit down, Harry,” Niall says, and there’s enough steel in his tone that Harry finds himself doing it almost without thought. “We need to talk about my album.”

Harry just blinks at him. Of all the things he was expecting Niall to lead with...

“Why?” he manages to get out, mind whirling, but Niall just gives him a cryptic sort of smile.

“I never promised not to, did I?”

 

***

 

Louis spends the next week shut up in his flat. He writes, and curls up on his sofa with fifteen blankets and a television remote, and definitely does _not_ cry, and then writes some more. He’s doing some combination of these things, leaning heavily toward the blankets and the crying, when someone starts knocking on the door to his flat.

Louis goes to answer it on autopilot, with vague thoughts of the Chinese delivery he must have ordered. He registers Niall and Liam standing there with nothing more than a dull sort of acquiescence.

“Lou, aren’t you ready?” Liam asks, his voice deliberately gentle even as sharp eyes scan him up and down. Louis assumes Liam doesn’t like whatever he sees, if the tension at the corner of his mouth is any indication.

“You look like shit, mate,” Niall blurts out, and even through his fog of misery and sleep-deprivation, Louis can easily read the irritated glare that Liam shoots his way. Clearly, Liam’d made Niall agree to a more tactful approach.

“It’s just...you did promise,” Liam offers, shifting from one foot to the other, visibly anxious now that his meticulously laid plans for this conversation are falling to pieces around him. Louis frowns uncomprehendingly back at Liam, even as the wisp of a conversation floats into his memory: Liam, on the phone a few days ago, begging him to attend some open mic night. Louis remembers the hope in Liam’s voice as he’d talked about how good it would be for Louis to leave his flat, get out of his own head, and the way Louis had made vague sounds of agreement until Liam had gotten off the phone.

“You were _serious_ about that?” Louis blurts out, and although his voice feels thick and creaky from disuse, it eases some of the tension around Liam’s shoulders. Niall shoots him a bright grin and shoves his way into Louis’ flat.

“Hell yeah!” he calls over his rapidly retreating shoulder. “And luckily for the rest of us, you’ve got just enough time for a shower.”

The next twenty minutes pass as some sort of dream, as Louis is shoved into the shower, and then into the outfit he finds waiting for him on his bed, and lastly into a waiting cab, all without his active participation. He’s still trying to formulate excuses to get out of it, even as he’s settled at a table with a pint of beer at his elbow, Liam and Niall flanking him and shooting him glances that seem tinged with relief. If Louis were more focused on observing his friends, and less on glaring at the cheerful pub-goers that surround them, he might notice the meaningful nods they're giving each other over his head, and their intent, almost expectant focus on the small stage at the front.

As it is, Louis sighs and settles in for an evening of watery beer and mediocre music, half-grateful and half-resentful of overprotective friends. And he does manage to last through a solid four acts before the noise of the pub seems to swell to unbearable levels, and Louis has a sudden but overwhelming need to escape.

“Need the loo,” Louis mutters, standing abruptly from his chair and trying not to let the claustrophobia he’s feeling show on his face.

“No-- you can’t--” Niall blurts out, something almost frantic about the way he reaches out to snag the sleeve of Louis’ shirt. His face has gone pale, and Louis can’t stay to figure out why, he _can’t stay here_ \-- so he twists out of Niall’s grasp and slides through the crowd, ignoring Liam’s urgent “ _Louis_ ” behind him.

Louis finds a side door with the unerring instincts of a habitual smoker, making sure it stays open before sinking against the wall next to it. He fumbles for a cigarette for a few brief moments before remembering he doesn’t even have any with him. At least it’s quiet out here, enough that the music of the pub has faded to a muted underscore of his own panting breaths.

He almost doesn’t notice the first bars of the guitar, a quiet thrum that’s nearly hidden under the noises of the pub and the hammering of his own heart. Even then, the song has been running through his mind so constantly that it takes him several long seconds to realize it’s not a particularly vivid auditory hallucination. That the first verse of “Strong” is _actually_ floating through the pub door. It takes him several more seconds -- even as his body has already started moving, already pushed open the door and slipped back into the pub -- to realize that it’s _him_ singing, Louis’ singer, the voice from the Songbird. There’s no mistaking it, Louis thinks feverishly, now shoving pub patrons aside indiscriminately to get a view of the stage. It’s not a sound he’d ever forget: that low, yearning edge of emotion simmering just under the surface. But it also sounds subtly different live, there’s a new urgency to the performance, and something else, more familiar...

Louis ducks around the last person blocking his view, and all his thoughts turn to static. Because that’s _Harry_ \-- Harry who can’t sing-- so it can’t be _Harry_ \--

With a detached sort of shock, Louis finds himself cataloguing every detail about Harry he’s able to make out through the crowd.

Harry’s perched on a stool with a battered guitar, his long legs folded awkwardly onto the rungs like it hasn’t occurred to him yet that his feet can rest on the floor. He’s wearing his stupid, battered boots and an _unconscionably_ yellow Hawaiian shirt, and his hair has the unmistakeable springiness of the _once_ carefully styled, before panicked fingers ran through it. And despite -- or perhaps because of -- these disastrous components, Harry on stage is utterly magnetic. Louis’ practiced eyes register, almost without thought, the settled ease to Harry’s hands on his guitar, and despite the unhealthy flush staining his cheeks, his voice is steady and controlled. He's putting on such a good show that Louis doubts anyone else in the crowd will register the way his eyes are constantly scanning his surroundings, flickering rapidly from one table to the other, or the way he lights up briefly when he catches sight of something at the other end of the pub, or the way that light flickers out a moment later.

Louis, still reeling, tries to get a look at what Harry’d seen, but it’s only Liam and Niall--

_Oh_.

Liam and Niall, who’d been so insistent that he come tonight, who’d been on edge all night, who’d been frantic to keep him seated at the table.

Louis’ thoughts are still coming unforgiveably slowly, but as he watches Harry miserably finish this song that Louis has written, he comes to the abrupt conclusion that thoughts are overrated. Because Harry is _here_ , and clearly looking for _him_ , and suddenly every moment thinking about Harry seems like nothing more than wasted opportunity to be  _touching_ him.

Harry mumbles “thanks” into the mic and takes off, clutching his guitar to his chest with white-knuckled fingers, and it’s all the cue Louis needs to chase after him.

“Harry! _Fuck_ \-- Harold!”

At that, Harry whirls around, a wildness to his eyes that has Louis reaching out a hand before he can register it, has him saying “You--!” like some sort of Scooby Doo villain, before clutching stupidly at the sleeve of Harry’s absurd yellow shirt, an aborted attempt to keep him close. They stare at each other for a long moment, totally unaware of the pub-goers who jostle them from all sides.

“Surprise?” is what Harry opens with, along with a half-hearted attempt at jazz hands, made more difficult by the presence of the guitar. There’s an uncertain wobble to his bitten-red mouth, and when he ducks his head low enough for his wild mop of hair to fall into his eyes, he seems hesitant to brush it away.

Louis can do nothing but blink at him, mouth hanging open, as his mind continues to whirr. Harry shuffles awkwardly for a few minutes, perhaps hoping that Louis will save him the trouble of explaining, but when Louis continues to stare, he manages to take a deep breath and press on. His words flow out in that slow, inexorable stream -- like an oncoming train -- that for Harry passes as panicked babbling.

“I should’ve told you it was me who sang the ‘Strong’ cover. I was just...afraid, and the stupid thing is, I’m not even sure what I was afraid _of_. But I do know that I was horrible to you. I kept pushing you to trust me, but I wasn’t willing to trust you back. I’m so _sorry_ , Lou.”

He’s pressing a CD case into Louis hands, and Louis catches hold of it automatically. “Louis” is scrawled across the front in Harry’s familiar handwriting.

“I still don’t know exactly what you wanted this for, but it doesn’t matter. I trust you with it. I should have from the start. Can you forgive me?”

“I-- I don’t--” Louis gasps. He means to say _I don’t understand_ , but his words have gotten lost somewhere, and before he can find them again, Harry’s face crumples.

“I understand. Well. That’s all I wanted to tell you, I suppose,” Harry says, forcing a smile even as he blinks furiously to hold back tears. He starts to turn away, and Louis doesn’t realize he’s still holding onto Harry’s sleeve until his hand is tightening around it and preventing Harry from moving. They’re both quiet for a moment, staring at way the fabric is bunching under his fingers, until Louis finally finds his words.

“Zayn told you, didn’t he,” Louis says, and while he thought he’d be angry about that, he feels much more charitable about it, after watching Harry’s face slowly light up like dawn breaking over the horizon.

“Niall, actually. It was terrifying. I think I’d rather’ve had Zayn,” Harry says with a tilt of his head, lips twitching like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to laugh about it yet. But then he finally meets Louis’ eyes for the first time since he arrived, and the warmth of his expression -- the way he’s looking at Louis like Louis’ very presence in front of him is a miracle -- is so much the opposite of anything Louis’d ever expected that it sends him reeling.

“Lou--” Harry says quietly, reverently, leaning in to Louis’ hand on his arm. “I should have recognized it. The sound of your music -- the way it makes me feel -- I should’ve known it was you.”

“That’s why I wanted the “Strong” cover,” Louis confesses. He can tell by Harry’s tiny frown that he doesn’t understand the connection, so Louis tries to clarify. “Um. You said you didn’t know what I wanted it for? When I heard it, it was like...you understood the song, understood _me_. And I think part of me recognized _you_ , then -- or at least, realized who my music was meant to be for. I’ve been...” Louis hesitates, feeling oddly shy about this last revelation, despite the many others that have just come before. “I’ve been writing songs for you ever since.”

“What do you mean, writing for me?” Harry breathes out, eyes wide. Louis shrugs, mouth quirking into an echo of his usual mischievous smile as he reels Harry in by the shirtsleeve.

“Guess you’ll have to hear them for yourself.”


	5. Epilogue

_[Image Text:_

_Billboard --_ _Tomlinson and Payne Depart Syco to Form New Label_

_Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne are leaving Simon Cowell-headed Syco Music, Billboard officially confirmed on Tuesday. The songwriting and producing duo -- affectionately nicknamed “Lilo” by fans -- are expected to announce the launch of an independent label, One Direction, early next week._

_Sources tell Billboard that the move from Syco was “amicable,” and that Tomlinson and Payne thanked Cowell for his mentorship during a goodbye luncheon on Monday. Insiders expect Niall Horan to be one of the first artists to sign with One Direction. The singer-songwriter became a breakout success after his debut album, This Town, topped the charts last year._

_In their five-year careers with Syco, Tomlinson and Payne have racked up thirteen Billboard Hot 100 number one hits between them, and have worked with artists such as Kelly Clarkson, Little Mix, and Demi Lovato.]_

_[Image Text:_

_Sugarscape -- Zayn Malik All Grown Up_

_The last time we saw Zayn Malik, he was just 17 years old, a fresh-faced X Factor winner with a heart of gold and a perfect jawline. And now the Bradford bad boy is back in town, sexy as ever! But old enough that we aren’t pervy for drooling._

_That’s right...after a decade out of the spotlight, Zayn Malik is reportedly hard at work on a new album. He signed with newly formed One Direction Records earlier this year, and apparently this album will have a more R &B vibe than his earlier work. If that means more chances for Zayn to croon sensually into our ears, count us in._

_Why has Zayn gotten back into music after all these years? Maybe he’s finally perfected his world-famous smolder. We should really look at some examples. For research, of course...]_

__

_[Image Text:_

_The Sun: TOMMO HEADED IN WRONG DIRECTION! Did Romance with "Musician" Cause Cowell Rift?_

_Louis Tomlinson raised eyebrows when he and co-producer Liam Payne split with Syco Music so abruptly last month. And he set tongues wagging again when he signed an unknown artist, Harry Styles, so soon after forming his independent label._

_I can now exclusively reveal the shocking secret behind all this erratic behavior: Louis just can't resist a pretty face._

_Sources close to the hit-maker confirm that earlier this year, Louis started dating aspiring musician Harry Styles. “Louis was head-over-heels,” a close pal confessed. “He would do anything for Harry.” So when Harry asked for a recording contract, Tommo went straight to music mogul Simon Cowell._

_“Simon was really worried,” my source continued. “He warned Louis that Harry was just using the relationship for contacts, but Louis was too smitten to take Simon’s advice. They had a terrible row, and Louis quit on the spot.”_

_Did Louis create an entire label just to jump-start his boyfriend’s music career? We may never know for sure. But “Simon just wants the best for Louis and Liam,” my insider explained. “And with Louis so distracted by vanity projects, Simon is really concerned for the future of One Direction.”]_

_***_

**Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw**

GRIMSHAW: Good morning! We have Niall Horan in the studio with us today! How are you, Niall?

HORAN: Can’t complain, mate. Flying to LA tomorrow to escape the rain. Got a new album coming out. Had a scone for breakfast. S’all good.

GRIMSHAW: Look at you, being all subtle with your promo! Tell us about the scone, then, go on.

HORAN: [laughs] It was a smashing scone. Blueberry. My mate Harry baked ‘em, so they were fresh from the oven.

GRIMSHAW: Harry? As in Harry Styles?

HORAN: Yeah, think you had ‘im on last week. Called ‘im “charming” and he hasn’t shut up about it since.

GRIMSHAW: Well, now that I know he’s been withholding pastries from me, I’m reconsidering!

HORAN: [laughs]

GRIMSHAW: Our Harry’s got himself into a bit of trouble in the press lately, isn’t that right?

HORAN: It’s quite frustrating, honestly, because Harry’s the nicest guy. He’s such a fantastic artist, and I just hope people give him the chance to prove it. But I think once you hear his album, you’ll understand. The _real_ Harry. Like, Nick, you’ve heard the single Lou wrote for him?

GRIMSHAW: Yeah, ‘Home?’ Cried my eyes out when we played it on the radio last week. Thanks for that, Hazza.

HORAN: And Louis, too. Louis Tomlinson. He’s the one that wrote it, and he’s a co-writer on my album too.

GRIMSHAW: Ahhh, are we finally coming around to the album, then?

HORAN: Just saving the best for last!

GRIMSHAW: But Tommo’s writing for you, you said? Has that been a change, to go from writing an entire album yourself, to mostly co-writing?

HORAN: Well...thing is...music is a collaborative medium, even when people claim otherwise. And Louis is brilliant, and he was there all through the writing of _Through the Dark._ So. Like. Even if his name wasn’t on it, it was always partially his, you know? It’s actually nice to be able to _acknowledge_ that with _This Town_.

GRIMSHAW: Nialler, are you saying Tommo did work on your last album that went uncredited?

[long pause]

HORAN: Even _if_ that were true, that’s not the kind of thing you can just _say_ on Radio 1, Grimmy. You _wish_ I’d come out and give you a scoop that big. I’m just answering your question honestly: I’m excited to be collaborating with Louis on _This Town_. And nothing about my music has changed.

GRIMSHAW: Hm. Well. I’m sure fans of _Through the Dark_ are relieved to hear you say that. But maybe we should let the listeners judge the album for themselves? Here’s Niall Horan’s newest single, “Act My Age.”

 

***

 

“Niall Horan, you devious bastard!” Louis crows, pouncing on Niall the moment he enters the karaoke bar and pressing a sloppy kiss to each of Niall’s cheeks. Zayn and Liam are already there as well, sitting at their customary table and grinning widely. Harry’s on his way back from the bar, juggling five drinks in his preternaturally large hands.

“Take it you heard the Breakfast Show?” Niall asks ruefully, rubbing at his reddening face with the back of his fist.

“No, I’m just deeply attracted to straight Irishmen. ‘S the thrill of the chase,” Louis tells him seriously, still hanging around his neck like a limpet, before sticking his tongue in Niall’s ear.

“Eugh, Lou, gerrof,” Niall yelps, dislodging Louis with a full-body shudder. “Harry, come collect your boy!”

“I cannot be tamed,” Louis sniffs, as Harry drops his beer bottles onto their table and barrels into Niall himself.

“You didn’t have to say anything, you know,” Harry mumbles into Niall’s shoulder, fingers clinging tightly to the fabric of Niall’s shirt.

“Yeah. I did, Haz,” Niall says, before hugging back.

“No, I mean. You didn’t have to tell Nick about the _scones_. Now everyone’ll want one.” Harry pulls back from Niall’s shoulder to reveal a tiny smirk on his face, and Niall gives him a light shove in return.

“Hell, I’ll send Grimmy a whole basket of scones myself,” Liam announces, unfolding himself from his seat to come clap Niall on the back. “He handled it all perfectly. Just what we wanted. So did you,” Liam adds, beaming.

“Yeah, and how long did you practice in front of the mirror to manage that?” Zayn asks, coming up behind Liam to ruffle Niall’s hair. “ _Oh Grimmy, I couldn’t possibly..._ ” he mimics in a high, vaguely Irish falsetto.

“Shut up, I _can_ lie. Dunno how that rumor started,” Niall grumbles, but he leans into all their hands nevertheless.

“So are we gonna do this, then, lads? Because I’ve got some sick new moves, ready to tear up the karaoke stage,” Louis announces, doing an awkward body roll that falls somewhere between an 'NSYNC video and a slinky falling down stairs. Harry makes an impressive show of swooning onto the sticky pub floor.

“You’re ridiculous,” Louis tells him fondly, pulling him to his feet and into a kiss. Harry grins cheekily against Louis’ mouth.

“Oi. Can still feel you laughing,” Louis murmurs, pinching his waist before immediately soothing the sting with soft swipes of his fingers. “And kissing is no laughing matter.”

Louis deepens the kiss with such a single-minded intensity that Harry is helpless to do anything but sink into, a familiar electricity crackling along his skin, his body curving to fit against Louis’ smaller frame with practiced ease. Louis tangles a hand in Harry’s curls, timing his light tug with a particularly wicked twist of his tongue. Harry groans and tries to press closer into him.

“You’re _both_ ridiculous,” Liam’s voice cuts through Harry’s Louis-induced haze. Louis pulls back enough to flip Liam off. But his eyes catch on Harry’s face and he stills for a moment, a slight flush still dusting his cheeks from the kiss.

“I’m proud of you, you know,” Louis says as he smooths away the flyaway bits of hair that have fallen into Harry’s eyes, a light, intimate gesture that makes Harry’s heart clench. And, like always, Louis has ten layers of meaning hidden underneath his simplest sentences. But Harry’s had some practice at deciphering them now, and so he knows that every layer is saying “ _love love love_.”

“We won’t have final numbers until the end of the week,” Louis continues. “But it looks like _If I Could Fly_ is going to smash it. And even if the only people listening were me and your nan, I’d still be dead proud. It’s beautiful work.”

“Aw Lou, you love me. You really love me,” Harry croons, wriggling happily in his arms. But Louis just smiles and holds Harry tighter.

“Yeah” he says in a low voice, and runs his thumb down the curve of Harry’s jaw to rest against his pulse point. His eyes turn soft as he takes in the sight of his fingers on Harry’s skin. “I love you. I really do.”

Harry can feel his smile widening, and he probably looks besotted. But he wouldn’t stop even if he could, because Louis is twisting his mouth fondly -- the way he does when he finds Harry too endearing to tolerate -- and he’s got the same stars in his eyes that Harry feels whenever he looks at Louis.

Saying “I love you” has never represented a big step in their relationship. Somehow, with them, it had always felt like a natural phrase to slip into everyday conversation, right from the start. A fervent “I love you” when Harry discovered Louis’ lost notebook stuffed behind a sofa cushion; a giggly “I love you” when Louis had found Harry’s most ticklish spot and had demanded a password to make him stop; a mumbled “I love you” smudged into each others’ skin in the moments before sleep. Neither of them could remember the first time they said it to each other: by the time they thought to keep track, they’d already begun.

Perhaps it’s all those words peeking out from behind Louis’ simple declaration just now that has Harry tearing up in this stupid pub with its half-priced nachos and fourth “Livin’ on a Prayer” rendition of the night. Or perhaps it’s just the thought of Louis, whom Harry would happen upon at 4am, pale and tired-eyed and curled onto their sofa, using his notebook as a pillow. Who, when Harry tried to drag him to bed, insisted in a sleepy voice, “Not gonna write my usual shit for you, am I, Haz? Hafta get it right.” Who always called it “Harry’s album,” casually, like Harry’s contribution to the album was never in doubt.

Harry privately knew that if it was “Harry’s album,” it was only because Louis had gifted it to him, each track a love letter that Louis had written and which Harry sang back to him with all his heart.

Perhaps it’s that after all the months of work and anxiety that the five of them had poured into One Direction, to have Louis fitted snugly against his chest and smiling brilliantly up at him feels like both a culmination and a promise.

“Me too. Love you,” Harry murmurs, his lips shaping his own promise against the shell of Louis’ ear. Louis turns his head slightly to nuzzle at Harry, kissing the curve of Harry’s neck, his hand sweeping down to fit into the dip of Harry’s hip. It’s the same place it had rested the first time they’d kissed in that alley. Harry wonders if Louis is remembering it too, because he pulls back a bit, his eyes full of emotion, and chokes out:

“Harry--”

But before Louis can say anything else, Niall is wedging himself obnoxiously between them, throwing sharp elbows with abandon.

“Stop cuddling without me,” Niall whines. “It’s unfair. And we’re scheduled to go next.”

“So if you could both pull your heads out of each other’s arses,” Zayn comments lightly, grinning at the two of them.

“No, we’re saving that for later,” Louis tells him with a broad wink, which causes Zayn to scoff and Liam to firmly state “ _no_ ,” like a dog command, and Harry wonders if he’s hoping to obedience-train the innuendo out of them. Niall, on the other hand, merely drapes himself more insistently over Harry’s back.

“Alright, we’re going,” Harry grumbles.

The five of them make their way forward, and Harry can hear the murmurs of recognition rising up in the pub behind him, but he forgets about them all the moment Louis turns around on the steps of the stage to give him a quick wink. Harry notices with a rush of fondness that Niall’s managed to conjure a guitar from somewhere mysterious. He’s always doing that at parties, poking through strangers’ homes until he finds a musical instrument that even _they_ didn’t realize they had, but Harry thinks this is taking the talent rather far.

“C’mon, Neil, nobody wants a bloody concert from you,” Louis stage-whispers.

“Fuck off, Lou,” Niall retorts pleasantly, and pretends not to hear Louis’ mutter of “conceited arse” as Zayn trembles with silent laughter beside him. Liam shakes his head at all three of them, but there’s a small smile playing around his mouth as he commandeers the karaoke mic.

“Right. Hello everyone! We’re One Direction. And this is 'Torn.'"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope all my photoshopped newspaper articles worked OK for you all...
> 
> My tumblr is [here](http://rainbowninja.tumblr.com/) if you wanna come tell me what you thought, or you can reblog my fic post [here](http://rainbowninja.tumblr.com/post/158880672845/life-was-a-song-you-came-along-by-rainbowninja167).


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